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BY R.G N '5 

Childe fiarold,Canto IV 
and Other Poem^' 



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CHILDE HAROLD 

CANTO THE FOURTH 

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 
AND MAZEPPA 

BY 

LORD BYRON 

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, A.M. 

HEAD OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT IN THE 
NEWTON (mass.) HIGH SCHOOL 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

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CONTENTS .VvVa!>^ 



Biographical Sketch of Bybon "» 

Childe Harold (Canto the Fourth) .... 1 

The Prisoner of Chillon ^ 

78 
Mazeppa 



Notes, Comments, and Suggestions 107 



COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOVGrlTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



©Ci.A25123-. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LORD BYRON 

Although Byron died at the age of thirty-six, the events 
of his life, as contrasted with those of most poets, are nu- 
merous and dramatic. Byron's temperament was restless 
and passionate, and this restlessness and passion carried him, 
in his brief career, into many and varied activities. We 
can get a short, comprehensive view of his life by consider- 
ing it under the four following headings : (1) Birth and 
Farentage; (2) Early Training and Schooling; (3) Ca- 
reer at Cambridge; (4) Activities of Later Life. 

George Gordon Byron was born in Holies Street, Lon- 
don, January 22, 1788. His father came of aristocratic 
lineage, though with many blots on the family Birth and 
escutcheon. His paternal grand-uncle, then lord ^"entage 
of the estate at Newstead, which had been granted to the 
family by Henry VIII. killed his neighbor and kinsman, 
Mr. Chaworth, was committed to the Tower, and later con- 
victed of manslaughter. The grandfather, though bearing 
a better reputation, led a stormy existence as an admiral in 
the British navy. Of him Byron wrote in the Epistle to 
Augusta, ^^ He had no rest at sea, nor I. on shore. " 

The father of the poet was a notorious profligate who 
bore to the end of his life an unsavory reputation, and 
finally, after abandoning his wife and child, died abroad, 
leaving a very small fortune for his family. 

Byron's mother, Catherine Gordon, was also of aristo- 
cratic birth, being descended from James I. of Scotland, 
through his daughter Annabella, married to the second Earl 
of Huntley. The mother was a woman of ungovernable tem- 
per, so variable and so ill-poised that Byron as a schoolboy 
calmly admitted to one of his playmates that she was a fool. 
She was not devoid of affection, but her affection was not of 
the strong, partial sort that arouses a child's early love. 
Because her son was afflicted with congenital lameness she 



iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LORD BYRON 

seemed rather angered than sympathetic. In one of her 
angry moods slie ended lier ahuse by calling liim 'Si lame 
brat." The sensitive nature of the boy was touched, and 
he said plaintively, *' I was born so, mother." 

When Byron was a mere infant tlie mother moved from 
London to Aberdeen, Scotland. The father was a tran- 
sient visitor here until hisdeatli in 1791. Neither 
Ing and parent seems to have exerted tlie influence which 

°° ^ the little boy's nurse, jVIary Gray, exerted; and 
•to her biographers attribute the poet's knowledge of the 
Bible — particularly the Psalms — and the early Calvinistic 
bent given to liis religious nature. 

Here in Scotland liis formal scliooling began. In 1792 — 
he was tlien Imt four years old — he was sent to a rudi- 
mentary school taught ])y a Mr. Boyers. He had several, 
ditierent tutors who prepared liim for the Aberdeen Gram- 
mar School, where, to use his own phrase, he "threaded 
all the classes to the fourth." 

At this time (1798) IWron inliorited the estate of New- 
stead AV)bey, and soon the mother and son returned to 
England. Kewstead, however, was in a state of decay and 
burdened with debt. Mrs. Byron could not afford to live 
there, and accordingly took up her residence at Nottingham 
where they lived for twelve months, Byron being under 
' the tutelage of a l\Ir. Rogers, who seems to have aroused 
the boy's affection. From here he went to Dr. Glennie*s 
school at Dulwich, leaving that for Harrow, which he en- 
tered in 1801. 

Of the boy Byron Dr. Joseph Drury, the head-master, 
later wrote: "Mr. Hanson, Lord Byron's solicitor, con- 
signed him to my care at the age of thirteen and a half, 
with remarks that his education had been neglected; that 
he v/as ill-prepared for a public school; but that he thought 
there was cleverness about him. After his departure I 
took my young disciple into my study, and endeavored to 
bring him forward by inquiries as to his former amusements, 
employments, and associates, but with little or no effect, 
and I soon found that a wild mountain colt had been sub- 
mitted to my management. But there was mind in his 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LORD BYRON v 

eye. In the first place, it was necessary to attach him to 
an ehler boy : the information he received gave him no 
pleasure when he heard of the advances of some much 
younger than himself. This I discovered, and assured him 
that lie should not be placed till by diligence he might 
rank with those of his own age. His manner and temper 
soon convinced me that he might be led by a silken string 
to a point, rather than a cable : on that principle I acted." 

Byron to the end of his life cherished a high regard for 
Dr. Drury, but the school — except the last year and a 
half — he disliked. He revolted against its discipline; he 
was a care-less student of Latin, Greek, and mathematics; 
and disliked continuous study of any kind; but all the 
while he was an omnivorous reader. His special interest 
at this time lay in declamation rather than in poetry. His 
prowess in athletics, especially in boxing, rowing, and 
swimming, won for him a leader's part among the boys of 
the school. He formed many strong attachments, and 
won a reputation for loyalty in his friendships. 

Byron spent the years from 1805 to 1808 in a desultory 
attendance at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received 
his honorary nobleman's M. A. degree in March career at 
of his last year in residence. Just how he was Cambridge 
able to secure a degree is a mystery, for he was always a 
poor student, idled away much of his time in London, 
squandered his money lavishly, and spent much of his 
time in athletic sports — in cricket, boxing, riding, shooting, 
and swimming. 

For the University he avowed a candid dislike, as did 
Milton and Dryden and Gray. Yet careless as the days he 
spent here, it would be folly to suppose that the academic 
atmosphere was not a powerful influence in developing his 
poetical genius. Here he met many young men who be- 
came his ardent friends, many of whom helped to kindle 
his intellectual fires. His intimate companions were Ed- 
ward Noel Long, Charles Skinner Mathews, the Rev. F. 
Hodgson, and his lifelong friend, John Cam Hobhouse. 
He was especially intimate with a youth named Eddlestone, 
of inferior social rank, but one whom he said he "loved 



vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LORD BYRON 

more than any human being." Association \vith all these 
and with his tutor, and Avith the university lecturers, had 
an influence hard to estimate, but nevertheless real. 

In 1806, when Byron was eighteen years old, he col- 
lected and published for private distribution his juvenile 
Activities ol poems, M'liich were in no sense remarkable, and 
Later Llle jj^^ j^q^ foreshadow his future genius. A year 
later he issued another volume entitled Ilonrs of Idle- 
ness. 

As we view it in retrospect, the publication of Hours in 
Idleness is important, not so much for its inherent merit 
as for its influence in making literary history. It was 
perhaps largely by chance that the volume happened to 
fall under tlie eye and under the odium of Lord Brougham, 
who thereupon wrote a scathing criticism of the work for 
the Edinburgh Remeiv. The severity of this criticism 
aroused the Berserker nature of Lord Byron, who retaliated 
with a long poem, published a year later (1809), Eivjlish 
Bards and Scotch Bcviewers. The reply revealed the 
rapid movement and the satiric gleam which distinguished 
much of Byron's later work. It immediately gave him a 
reputation for poetic power, though full of bitterness and 
abuse. 

Just a few weeks before the publication of English 
Bards and Scotch Beviarcrs Byron had come of age 
and had taken his seat in the Ho\ise of Lords. Shortly 
after the publication of the poem he started with his friend 
Hobhouse on his first sojourn on the Continent. In his 
journey of two years he visited Portugal, Spain, Sardinia, 
Greece, Turkey, and other foreign countries, at odd hours 
writing in verse an idealized account of his travels. 

On his return to England in 1811 he published the first 
two cantos of this account under the title of Child e IlarohVs 
Pilgrimage. This poem met with extraordinary popu- 
larity; as Byron himself expressed it, "I awoke one morn- 
ing and found myself famous." 

For a time after his return to England Byron was deeply 
interested in politics, and made several speeches in the 
House of Lords on the Liberal side. But the natural 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LORD BYRON vii 

genius of the man was literary and social. He became the 
popular hero, of the hour. He became the intimate com- 
panion of such celebrities as Sheridan, Rogers, Campbell, 
Monk Lewis, and Madame de Stael. His social duties did 
not apparently interfere with his writing, and before 1816 
he had written and published The Waltz, The Giaour, 
The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Lara, Hebrew Melo- 
dies, Siege of Corinth, and Parisina. 

On January 2, 1815, Byron, after a series of love-affairs, 
was married to Miss Anne Isabella Milbanke, only daugh- 
ter of Sir Ralph Milbanke. In December of that year 
their daughter, Augusta Ada, was born. The tempera- 
ments of the husband and wife were ill-suited, and after 
an unhappy year of married life, there was a formal separa- 
tion. Their domestic trouble was widely heralded, and 
Byron, the erstwhile lion of London society, was degraded 
and held up to public scorn. Lady Byron thought him 
insane. Matters grew so disturbing to the poet that in 
April of 1816 Byron left England for good. Concerning 
this departure he later wrote : " I felt that, if what was 
whispered and muttered and murmured was true, I was 
unfit for England ; if false, England was unfit for me. I 
withdrew ; but this was not enough. In other countries — 
in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue 
depth of the lakes — I was pursued and breathed upon by 
the same blight. I crossed the mountains, but it was the 
same ; so I went a little farther, and settled myself by the 
waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes 
himself to the water." 

This second tour on the Continent provided the material 
for the third and fourth cantos of Childe HarokCs Pil- 
grimage. Among the places visited were Ostend, Ghent, 
Antwerp, Mechlin, Waterloo, Geneva, Coblentz, Lake 
Leman, Vevay (where the castle of Chillon is situated), 
Milan, Venice, and Rome. The poem was completed in 
the latter part of 1817. 

In the meantime The Prisoner of Chillon had been 
completed and Manfred had been begun. These were fol- 
lowed by Bejjpo (1818), Prophecy of Dante (1819), Ma- 



viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LORD BYRON 

rino FaUero (1820), The Two Foscari (1821), Sardana- 
palus (1821), Cain (1821), Visio?i of Judgment (1821), 
Werner (1822), The Deformed Transf,nned (1822), Don 
Juan, untiiiislied, (1823), and many minor poems. 

But liyron's interests were not wholly literary. In 
1820 he became an active sympathizer in the Carbonari 
movement in Italy — a movement designed to free Italy 
from Austrian rule. The leaders of the Carbonari were 
discovered and banished. Byron, being an Englishman 
of rank, was exempted from punishment, though the 
Austrian government was cognizant of his connection with 
the conspiracy. 

His last political interest was the independence of 
Greece in her struggle against Turkey. For this he gave 
freely of his money, etpiipping a ship at his own expense 
and volunteering his services. In this campaign he mani- 
fested such courage and sagacity that he quickly won the 
confidence of the Grecian leaders. Some historians think 
that, had he lived to see the success of the Greek cause, 
he would have been made king. But all plans were cut 
short by fever contracted at jVIesolonghi. Here, after an 
illness of ten days, he dieil, April 10, 1824, greatly mourned 
by the Greeks. Burial at Westminster Al))>ey being denied 
him, his remains were laid by the side of those of his an- 
cestors in the village church at Hucknall, the conservative 
gentry abstemiously denying their presence, the common 
peoj-ile attending in throngs. 

In all that period from ISIG to his death in 1824 ]^>yron 
had lived on the Continent the life of a reckless adventurer 
and nomad. Venice, Ravenna, Pisa, Genoa, Mesolonghi — 
all these had been successive scenes in the fifth act of his 
life's tragedy. Into it had come other important charac- 
ters — the Shelleys, the Godwins, Lady Caroline Lamb, 
Claire Clairmont, the Countess Guiccioli, the members 
of the Carbonari, and the Greek revolters. Moods of pas- 
sion and patriotism and generosity and satire and courage 
and irresolution mingled in strange confusion, until finally 
the end came in his death by fever in that last sacrificial 
deed of his in behalf of Grecian liberty. 



20 



CHILDE HAROLD. 
CANTO THE FOURTH. 

I. 

I STOOD in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand ; 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles. 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred 

isles ! 

II. 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers 

At airy distance, with majestic motion, 

A ruler of the waters and their powers. 

And such she was; — her daughters had their 

dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers : 
In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity in- 
creased. 

III. 

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more. 
And silent rows the songless gondolier ; 
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear ; 



I BYRON 

Those days are gone, but Beauty still is here ; 
States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die, 
s Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear. 
The pleasant place of all festivity, 
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy I 

IV. 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond 
Her name in story, and her long array 

» Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 
Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway: 
Ours is a tropliy which will not decay 
With the Kialto ; Shylock and the Moor 
And Pierre can not be swept or worn away, 

S5 The keystones of the arch I — thougli all were o'er, 
For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 

V. 

The beings of the mind are not of clay ; 

Essentially immortal, they create 

And multiply in us a brighter ray 
40 And more beloved existence. That which Fate 

Prohibits to dull life in this our state 

Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, 

First exiles, then replaces what we hate ; 

AVatering the heart whose early flowers have died, 
*5 And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. 

VI. 

Such is the refuge of our youth and age, 
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy; 
And this worn feeling peoples many a page, 
And, maybe, that which grows beneath mine eye. 
80 Yet there are things whose strong reality 



65 



CHILDE HAROLD 3 

Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky, 
And the strange constellations which the Muse 
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse : 

vn. 

I saw or dream'd of such, — but let them go, — 
They came like truth, and disappear'd like 

dreams ; 
And whatsoe'er they were — are now but so. 
I could replace them if I would ; still teems 
My mind with many a form which aptly seems 
w Such as I sought for, and at moments found : 
Let these too go, for waking Reason deems 
Such ov^er-weening phantasies unsound. 
And other voices speak and other sights surround. 

viir. 

I 've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes 
«5 Have made me not a stranger — to the mind 

Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; 

Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find 

A country with — ay, or without mankind ; 

Yet was I born where men are ])roud to be, 
70 Not without cause ; and should I leave behind 

The inviolate island of the sage and free, 
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 

IX. 

Perhaps I loved it well ; and should I lay 
My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 
76 My spirit shall resume it — if we may 
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 
My hopes of being remember'd in my line 



4 BYRON 

With my land's language : if too fond and far 
These aspirations in their scope incline, — 
80 If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, 

Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 

X. 

My name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honour'd by the nations — let it be, 
And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 
85 And be the Spartan's ej)ita})h on me, 

' Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.' 
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need ; 
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me — and I bleed : 
90 I should have known what fruit would sj)ring from 
such a seed. 

XI. 
The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; 
And annual marriage now no more renew'd. 
The Hucentaur lies rotting unrestored, 
Neglected garment of her widowliood ! 
M St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood 

Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd ])ower. 
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour 
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd 
dower. 

XII. 

100 The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt ; 
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains 
Clank over sce])tred cities ; nations melt 
From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt 



CHILDE HAROLD 5 

105 The sunshine for a while, and downward go 

Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's 

belt ; — 
Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo, 
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe ! 

XIII. 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, 
no Their gilded collars glittering in the sun ; 
But is not Doria's menace come to pass? 
Are they not bridled f — Venice lost and won, 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done. 
Sinks, like a sea- weed, into whence she rose ! 
"5 Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, 
Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes. 
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. 

XIV. 

In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre, 
Her very by-word sprung from victory, 

120 The ' Planter of the Lion,' which through fire 
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea ; 
Though making many slaves, herself still free. 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite ; — 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! Vouch it, ye 

125 Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight ! 
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. 

XV. 

Statues of glass — all shiver'd — the long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust ; 
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous 
pile 
130 Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; 



6 BYRON 

Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, 
Have yielded to the stranger : empty halls, 
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too oft remind her who and what enthralls, 
135 Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely 
walls. 

XVI. 

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war, 
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, 
Her voice their only ransom from afar : 
140 See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car 
Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins 
Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains, 
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his 
strains. 

XVII. 

145 Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, 
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot. 
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine. 
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot 
Which ties thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot 

150 Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, 

Albion, to thee : the Ocean queen should not 
Abandon Ocean's children ; in the fall 
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. 

XVIII. 

I loved her from my boyhood ; she to me 
155 Was as a fairy city of the heart, 

Rising like water-columns from the sea, 



CHILDE HAROLD T 

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart : 
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art, 
Had stamped her image in me ; and even so, 
160 Although I found her thus, we did not part. 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

XIX. 

I can repeople with the past — and of 

The present there is still for eye and thought, 

166 And meditation chasten'd down, enough. 

And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought ; 
And of the happiest moments which were wrought 
Within the web of my existence, some 
From thee, fair Venice, have their colours caught : 

170 There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, 
Nor torture shake, or mine would now be cold and 
dumb. 

XX. 

But from their nature will the tannen grow 
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks. 
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below 
175 Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks 
Of eddying storms ; yet springs the trunk, and 

mocks 
The howling tempest, till its height and frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, 
180 And grew a giant tree ; — the mind may grow the 
same. 

XXI. 
Existence may be borne, and the deep root 
Of ^''^"^ and sufferance make its firm abode 



8 BYRON 

In bare and desolated bosoms : mute 
The camel labours with the heaviest load, 
185 And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestow'd 
In vain should such example be ; if they, 
Things of ignoble or of savage mood, 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay 
May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. 

XXII. 

190 All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed 
Even by the sufferer ; and, in each event. 
Ends: — Some, with hope replenish 'd and re- 

buoy'd. 
Return to whence they came — with like intent, 
And weave their web again ; some, bow'd and 
bent, 
195 AVax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, 
And perish with the reed on which they leant ; 
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime. 
According as their souls were form'd to sink or 
climb. 

XXIII. 

But ever and anon of griefs subdued 
200 There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it would 

fling 
Aside for ever : it may be a sound, — 
205 A tone of music, summer's eve, or spring, 

A flower, the wind, the ocean, — which shall 
wound. 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 
bound ; 



CHILDE HAROLD 9 

XXIV. 

And how and why we know not, nor can trace 
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, 

210 But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface 

The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, 
Which out of things familiar, undesign'd, 
When least we deem of such, calls up to view 
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, 

215 The cold — the changed — perchance the dead — 
anew. 
The mourn'd, the loved, the lost — too many ! — yet 

, how few! 

XXV. 

But my soul wanders ; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track 

220 Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land 
Which was the mightiest in its old command, 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, 
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, 

225 The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and 
sea, 

XXVI. 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome ! 
And even since, and now, fair Italy, 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 
230 Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
More rich than other climes' fertility; 



10 BYRON 

Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which cannot be de- 
faced. 

XXVII. 

235 The moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
Sunset divides the sky with her, a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free 
From clouds, but of all colours seems to be 

240 Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 

Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air, an island of the blest ! 

XXVIII. 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 
345 With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
RoU'd o'er the peak of the far Rhsetian hill. 
As Day and Night contending were, until 
Nature reclaim'd her order : gently flows 
280 The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose, 
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within 
it glows, 

XXIX. 

Fill'd with the face of heaven, which from afar 
Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues, 
266 From the rich sunset to the rising star, 
Their magical variety diffuse. 
And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 
Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 



CHILD E HAROLD 11 

260 With a new colour as it gasps away, 

The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is 
gray. 

XXX. 

There is a tomb in Arqua ; - — rear'd in air, 
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose 
The bones of Laura's lover: here repair 

265 Many familiar with his well-sung woes. 
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes ; 
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name 

270 With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. 

XXXI. 

They keep his dust in Arqua where he died, 
The mountain-village where his latter days 
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their 

pride — 
An honest pride, and let it be their praise — 
275 To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 

His mansion and his sepulchre ; both plain 
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain 
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. 

XXXII. 

280 And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt 
Is one of that complexion which seems made 
For those who their mortality have felt, 
And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, 

385 Which shows a distant prospect far away 



12 BYRON 

Of busy cities, now in vain disj^lay'd 
For they can lure no further ; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, 

XXXIII. 

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, 
290 And shining in the brawling brook, where-by. 

Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours 

With a calm languor, which, though to the eye 

Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 

If from society we learn to live, 
205 'T is solitude should teach us how to die ; 

It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give 
No hollow aid ; alone — man with his God must 
strive : 

XXXIV. 

Or, it may be, with demons, who impair 
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their 
prey 

800 In melanchol}^ bosoms, such as were 

Of moody texture from their earliest day 
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, 
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass away ; 

305 Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, 
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. 

XXXV. 

Ferrara, in thy wide and grass-grown streets 
Whose symmetry was not for solitude. 
There seems as 't were a curse upon the seats 
sio Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood 
Of Este, which for many an age made good 



CHILDE HAROLD 13 

Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore 
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood 
Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore 
315 The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn 
before. 

XXXVI. 

And Tasso is their glory and their shame : 
Hark to his strain and then survey his cell ! 
And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame, 
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell. 
320 The miserable despot could not quell 

The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend 
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell 
Where he had plunged it. Glory without end 
Scattered the clouds away, and on that name attend 

XXXVIT. 

325 The tears and praises of all time ; while thine 
Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink 
Of worthless dust which from thy boasted line 
Is shaken into nothing — but the link 
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think 
330 Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn. 
Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee ! if in another station born. 
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to 
mourn : — 

XXXVIII. 

TTiou ! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die, 
335 Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou 
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty ; 
He I with a glory round his f urrow'd brow, 
Which emanated then, and dazzles now, 



14 BYRON 

In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, 
840 And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow 

No strain which shamed his country's creaking 
lyre, 
That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire! 

XXXIX. 

Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 't was his 
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong 

345 Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss. 
Oh, victor unsurpass'd in modern song ! 
Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long 
The tide of generations shall roll on. 
And not the whole combined and countless throng 

Ko Compose a mind like thine ? Though all in one 
Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form 
a sun. 

XL. 

Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those. 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine. 
The ]^ards of Hell and Chivalry : first rose 

855 The Tuscan father's comedy divine ; 
Then, not unequal to the Florentine 
The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth 
A new creation with his magic line. 
And, like the Ariosto of the North, 

860 Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly 
worth. 

XLI. 

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 
The iron crown of laurel's mimic'd leaves ; 
Nor was the ominous element unjust. 
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves 



CHILDE HAROLD 15 

M5 Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, 

And the false semblance but disgraced his brow ; 
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves. 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below 
Whate'er it strikes ; — yon head is doubly sacred 
now. 

XLII. 

870 Italia ! oh, Italia ! thou who hast 

The fatal gift of beauty, which became 
A funeral dower of present woes and past. 
On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough 'd by shame. 
And annals graved in characters of flame. 

875 Oh, God ! that thou wert in thy nakedness 

Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim 

Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press 

To shed thy blood and drink the tears of thy distress ; 

XLIII. 

Then mightst thou more appal ; or, less desired, 
380 Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored 

For thy destructive charms ; then, still untired, 
Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd 
Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde 
Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po 
885 Quaff blood and water ; nor the stranger's sword 
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, 
Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe. 

XLIV. 

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, 
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind, 
390 The friend of Tully. As my bark did skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 



16 BYRON 

^giua lay, Piraeus on the right, 
And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined 
395 Along the prow, and saw all these unite 

In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight ; — 

XLV. 

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd 
Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site, 
Which only make more mourn'd and more en- 
dear'd 

<«> The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light 
And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might. 
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age. 
These sej)ulchres of cities which excite 
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 

405 The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. 

XLVI. 

That page is now before me, and on mine 
His country's ruin added to the mass 
Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, 
And I in desolation. All that was 
410 Of then destruction is ; and now, alas ! 

Rome — Rome imperial, ])ows her to the storm, 
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form, 
Wrecks of another world whose ashes still are warm. 

XL VII. 

415 Yet, Italy ! through every other land 

Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to 

side ; 
Mother of Arts, as once of arms ; thy hand 
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide ; 



CHILDE HAROLD 17 

Parent of our Religion, whom the wide 
420 Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! 
Europe, repentant of her prarricide, 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 

XLVIII. 

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, 
425 Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps 
A softer feeling for her fairy halls. 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn and wine and oil, and Plenty leaps 
To laughing life with her redundant horn. 
«o Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, 
And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn. 

XLIX. 

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills 
The air around with beauty. We inhale 

435 The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 
Part of its immortality ; the veil 
Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale 
W^e stand, and in that form and face behold 
What mind can make when Nature's self would 
fail ; 

440 And to the fond idolaters of old 

Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould. 



We gaze and turn away, and know not where. 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
Reels with its fulness ; there — for ever there — 
445 Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art, 



18 BYRON 

We stand as captives and would not depart. 
Away! — there need no words nor terms precise, 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : 
^ Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shep- 
herd's prize. 

LI. 

Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise ? 
Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? or. 
In all thy perfect goddess-shij), when lies 
Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War ? 
*55 And gazing in thy face as toward a star, 
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee u])turn. 
Feeding on thy sweet cheek; while thy lips are 
With lava kisses melting while they burn, 
Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from 
an urn! 

LII. 

400 Glowing and cireumfused in speechless love, 
Their full divinity inadequate 
That feeling to express or to improve, 
The gods become as mortals, and man's fate 
Has moments like their brightest ; but the weight 

*fl5 Of earth recoils upon us ; — let it go ! 
We can recall such visions, and create, 
From what has been or might be, things which grow 
Into thy statue's form and look like gods below. 

LIII. 

I leave to learned fingers and wise hands, 
470 The artist and his ape, to teach and tell 
How well his connoisseurship understands 
The graceful bend and the voluptuous swell : 



CHILDE HAROLD 19 

Let these describe the undescribable ; 
I would not their vile breath should crisp the 
stream 
475 Wherein that image shall for ever dwell, 
The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream 
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 

LIV. 

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 

480 Even in itself an immortality, 

Though there were nothing save the past, and this, 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos : here repose 
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his, 

<«5 The starry Galileo, with his woes ; 

Here Machiavelli's earth returu'd to whence it rose. 

LV. 

These are four minds, which, like the elements. 
Might furnish forth creation. Italy ! 
Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand 
rents 

490 Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, 
And hath denied, to every other sky 
Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy decay 
Is still impregnate with divinity. 
Which gilds it with revivifying ray ; 

495 Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. 

LVI. 

But where repose the all Etruscan three — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they. 
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit, he 



20 BYRON 

Of the Hundred Tales of love — where did they lay 
500 Their bones, distinguish'd from our common clay 
In death as life ? Are they resolved to dust, 
And have their country's marbles nought to say ? 
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust ? 
Did they not to her breast their filial earth intrust ? 

LVII. 

505 Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar, 
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore ; 
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, 
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore 
Their children's children would in vain adore 

610 With the remorse of ages ; and the crown 

Which Petrarch's laureate brow sui)remely wore, 
Upcm a far and foreign soil had grown, 
His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled — not 
thine own. 

LVIII. 

Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd 
515 His dust ; and lies it not her Great among. 

With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed 
O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue ? 
That music in itself, whose sounds are song. 
The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb 
520 Uptorn must bear the hysena bigot's wrong. 
No more amidst the meaner dead find room. 
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom I 

LIX. 

And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust, — 
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
525 The Caesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, 



CHILDE HAROLD 21 

Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more. 
Happier Ravenna ! on thy hoary shore, 
Fortress of falling empire, honour'd sleeps 
The immortal exile ; Arqua, too, her store 
530 Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, 

While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead, and 
weeps. 

LX. 
What is her pyramid of precious stones, 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones 
535 Of merchant-dukes ? The momentary dews 
W^hich, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, 
Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, 
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread 
540 Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely 
head. 

LXI. 

There be more things to greet the heart and eyes 
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine, 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ; 
There be more marvels yet — but not for mine ; 
545 For I have been accustom'd to entwine 

My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields. 
Than Art in galleries : though a work divine 
Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields 

LXII. 
550 Is of anothertemper, and I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 



22 BYRON 

For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles 
655 The host between the mountains and the shore, 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files, 
And torrents, swoU'n to rivers with their gore. 
Reek through the sultry plain with legions shattered 
o'er, 

LXIII. 

Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds ; 

5«o And such the storm of battle on this day. 

And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds 
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray, 
An earthquake reel'd unheededly away ! 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, 

M5 And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet ; 
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations 
meet ! 

LXIV. 

The Earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity ; they saw 
570 The Ocean round, but had no time to mark 
The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law, 
In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the 

birds 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw 
575 From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing 
herds 
Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath 
no words. 

LXV. 

Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 



CHILDE HAROLD 23 

Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; 

680 Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 

Lay where their roots are ; but a brook hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain ; 
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead 

585 Made the earth wet and turn 'd the unwilling 
waters red. 

LXVI. 

But thou, Clitumnus, in thy sweetest wave 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear 
690 Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer 
Grazes, — the purest god of gentle waters, 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear ! 
Surely that stream was unprof aned by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters I 

LXVII. 
W5 And on thy happy shore a Temple still, 
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, 
Upon a mild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps 
floo The finny darter with the glittering scales. 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; 
While, chance, some scatter 'd water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bub- 
bling tales. 

Lxvin. 

Pass not unblest the Genius of the place I 
eo6 If through the air a zephyr more serene 
Win to the brow, 't is his ; and if ye trace 



24 BYRON 

Along his margin a more eloquent green, 
If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 
eio Of weary life a moment lave it clean 

With Nature's baptism, — 'tis to him ye must * 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. 

LXIX. 

The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; 

ei5 The fall of waters! rapid as the light 

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ; 
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from this 

620 Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, 

LXX. 

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, 
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 

626 Is an eternal April to the ground. 

Making it all one emerald: — how profound 
The gulf ! and how the giant element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound. 
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and 
rent 

830 With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful 
vent 

LXXI. 

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 

More like tlie fountain of an infant sea 

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 



CHILDE HAROLD 25 

Of a new world, than only thus to be 
335 Parent of rivers, wliich flow gushingly, 

With many windings, through the vale: — Look 

back ! 
Lo, where it comes like an eternity, 
As if to sweep down all things in its track, 
Charming the eye with dread — a matchless cataract, 

LXXII. 

640 Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, 

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge. 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes while all around is torn 

645 By the distracted waters, bears serene 

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn; 
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 

LXXIII. 

Once more upon the woody Apennine, 
650 The infant Alps, which — had I not before 

Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar 
The thundering lauwine — might be worshipp'd 

more; 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear 
655 Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar 

Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, 
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, 

LXXIV. 

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name ; 
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly 



26 BYRON 

660 Like spirits of the spot, as 't were for fame, 
For still they soar'd unutterably high : 
I 've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye ; 
Athos, Olympus, ^^tna, Atlas, made 
These hills seem things of lesser dignity, 

665 AH, save the lone Soracte's height, display'd 
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid 

LXXV. 

For our remembrance, and from out the plain 
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break. 
And on the curl hangs pausing. Not in vain 

670 May he, who will, his recollections rake. 
And quote in classic raptures, and awake 
The hills with Latin echoes ; I abhorr'd 
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, 
The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word 

675 In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 

LXXVI. 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd 
My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath 

taught 
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd, 
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought 
680 By the impatience of my early thought. 

That, with the freshness wearing out before 
My mind could relish what it might have sought. 
If free to choose, I cannot now restore 
Its health ; but what it then detested, still abhor. 

LXXVII. 

685 Then farewell, Horace ; whom I hated so, 
Not for thy faults, but mine ; it is a curse 



CHILDE HAROLD 27 

To understand, not feel thy lyric flow, 
To comprehend, but never love thy verse. 
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse 
690 Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art. 
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, 
Awakening without wounding the touch'd heart ; 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's ridge we part. 

LXXVIII. 

Oh Rome, my country ! city of the soul ! 

695 The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires, and control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 

700 O'er steps of broken thrones and temples. Ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 

LXXIX. 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 

705 An empty urn within her withered hands. 
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago : 
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers; — dost thou flow, 

710 Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness? 

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress ! 

LXXX. 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and 

Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride ; 



28 BYRON 

She saw her glories star by star expire, 
715 And up the steep barbarian monarch s ride 

Where the car climb \1 the capitol ; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site: — 
Chaos of rnins ! who shall trace the void, 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 
720 And say, ' here was, or is,' where all is doubly night? 

LXXXI. 

The double night of ages, and of her, 

Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and 

wrap 
All round us ; we but feel our way to err : 
The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, 
725 And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
But Home is as the desert where we steer 
Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry ' P^ureka I' it is clear — 
When but some false miraire of ruin rises near. 

o 

LXXXII. 

730 Alas, the lofty city ! and alas. 

The trebly hundred triumphs ! and the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! 
Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay, 

735 And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be 
Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was 
free ! 

LXXXIII. 

Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, 
740 Triumphant Sylla ! thou, who didst subdue 



CHILDE HAROLD 29 

Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel 
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due 
Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew 
O'er prostrate Asia; — thou, who with thy frown 
745 Annihilated senates — Roman, too, 

With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down 
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown, 

LXXXIV. 

The dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine 
To what would one day dwindle that which made 
750 Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine 

By aught than Romans Rome should thus be 

laid? 
She who was named Eternal ; and array'd 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veil'd 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and display'd, 
755 Until the o'er-canopied horizon fail'd. 

Her rushing wings — Oh, she who was Almighty 
hail'd! 

LXXXV. 

Sylla was first of victors ; but our own 
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ; he 
Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne 

760 Down to a block — immortal rebel ! See 
What crimes it costs to be a moment free 
And famous through all ages ! but beneath 
His fate the moral lurks of destiny ; 
His day of double victory and death 

765 Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his 
breath. 

LXXXVI. 

The third of the same moon whose former course 
Had all but crown'd him, on the self-same day 



30 BYRON 

Deposed him gently from his throne of force, 
And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. 
770 And sliow'd not Fortune thus how fame and 

sway. 
And all we deem delightful and consume 
Our souls to compass through each arduous 

way, 
Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb ? 
Were they but so in man's, how different were his 

doom ! 

LXXXVII. 

775 And thou, dread statue, yet existent in 
The austerest form of naked majesty! 
Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, 
At thy bathed base the bloody Cresar lie, 
Folding his robe in dying dignity, 

780 An offering to thine altar from the queen 
Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! did he die, 
And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been 
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ? 

LXXXVIII. 

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome! 
785 She-wolf, whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art. 
Thou staudest ; mother of the mighty heart. 
Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild 
teat, 
790 Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart. 

And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou 
yet 
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge 
forget ? 



CHILDE HAROLD 31 

LXXXIX. 

Thou dost ; but all thy foster-babes are dead — 
The men of iron ; and the world hath rear'd 
795 Cities from out their sepulchres. Men bled 
In imitation of the things they fear'd 
And fought and conquer'd and the same course 

steer'd, 
At apish distance ; but as yet none have, 
Nor could the same supremacy have near'd, 
800 Save one vain man, who is not in the grave 
But vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a 
slave — 

xc. 

The fool of false dominion — and a kind 
Of bastard Ctesar, following him of old 
With steps unequal ; for the Roman's mind 

805 Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould. 
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, 
And an immortal instinct which redeem'd 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, 
Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd 

810 At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beam'd, 

xci. 

And came — and saw — and conquer'd ! But the 

man 
Who would have tamed his eagles down to 

flee. 
Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van. 
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, 
815 With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be 
A listener to itself, was strangely framed ; 
With but one weakest weakness — vanity. 



82 BYRON 

Coquettish in ambition — still he aim'd — 
At what ? can he avouch — or answer what he 
claim'cl ? — 

XCII. 

820 And would be all or nothing — nor could wait 
For the sure grave to level him ; few years 
Had fix'd him with the Caesars in his fate, 
On whom we tread. For this the conqueror rears 
The arch of triumph ! and for this the tears 

825 And blood of earth flow on as they have flow'd, 
An universal deluge, which appears 
Without an ark for wretched man's abode, 
And ebbs but to reflow I — Renew thy rainbow, God ! 

XCIII. 

What from this barren being do we reap ? 
830 Our senses narrow, and our reason frail. 

Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, 
And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale ; 
Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil 
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
835 And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale 

Lest their own judgments should become too 
bright. 
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have 
too much light. 

XCIV. 

And thus they plod in sluggish misery, 
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, 
840 Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, 
Bequeathing their hereditary rage 
To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage 
War for their chains, and rather than be free, 



CHILDE HAROLD 33 

Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage 
845 Within the same arena where they see 
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. 

xcv. 
I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between 
Man and his Maker — but of things allow'd, 
Averr'd, and known — and daily, hourly seen — 

850 The yoke that is upon us doubly bow'd 
And the intent of tyranny avow'd. 
The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown 
The apes of him who humbled once the proud 
And shook them from their slumbers on the 
throne ; 

855 Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 

xcvi. 

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be. 
And Freedom find no champion and no child 
Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled ? 
860 Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, 
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar 
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled 
On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more 
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such 
shore ? 

XCVII. 

865 But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been 
To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime ; 
Because the deadly days which we have seen, 
And vile Ambition, that built up between 

870 Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, 



34 BYRON 

And the base pageant last upon the scene, 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — 
bis second fall. 

xcvin. 

Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner, torn but flying, 
875 Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, 
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind : 
Tliy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, 
Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little w^orth, 
880 But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; 
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 

xcix. 

There is a stern round tower of other days, 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 

885 Such as an army's baffled strength delays. 
Standing with half its battlements alone, 
And with two thousand years of ivy grown. 
The garland of eternity, wliere wave 
The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown ; — 

890 What was this tower of strength ? within its cave 
What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid? A woman's 



But who was she, the lady of the dead, 
Tomb'd in a palace ? AYas she chaste and fair ? 
Worthy a king's — or more — a Roman's bed ? 
What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear? 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir? 



CHILDE HAROLD 35 

How lived, how loved, how died she ? Was she not 
So honour'd — and conspicuously there, 
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot, 
900 Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 

CT. 

Was she as those who love their lords, or they 
Who love the lords of others ? — such have been 
Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say. 
Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien, 
905 Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, 
Profuse of joy — or 'gainst It did she war. 
Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean 
To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar 
Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the 
affections are. 

CII. 

910 Perchance she died in youth : it may be, bow'd 
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
That welgh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud 
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 

015 Heaven gives its favourites — early death ; yet 
shed 
A sunset charm around her, and illume 
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead. 
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf -like red. 

cm. 

Perchance she died in age — surviving all, 
92© Charms, kindred, children — with the silver gray 
On her long tresses, which might yet recall, 
It may be, still a something of the day 
When they were braided, and her proud array 



36 BYRON 

And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
925 By Rome. — But whither woukl Conjecture stray ? 
Thus much alone we know — INIetella died, 
The wealthiest Roman's wife. Behold his love or 
pride ! 

CIV. 

I know not why, but standing thus by thee, 
It seems as if I had thine inmate known, 
030 Thou tomb ! and other days come back on me 
With recollected music, though the tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; 
Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone 
935 Till I had bodied forth the heated mind 

Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves 
behind ; 

cv. 

And from the planks, far shatter'd o'er the rocks, 
Built me a little bark of hope, once more 
To battle with the ocean and the shocks 

940 Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar 
Which rushes on the solitary shore 
Where all lies founder'd that was ever dear. 
But could I irather from the wave-worn store 
Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer ? 

945 There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is 
here. 

CVI. 
Then let the winds howl on ! their harmony 
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 
The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry, 
As I now hear them, in the fading light 



CHILDE HAROLD 37 

950 Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, 
Answering each other on the Palatine, 
With their large eyes all glistening gray and 

bright. 
And sailing pinions. Upon such a shrine 
What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number 
mine. 

CVII. 

953 Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 
Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd 
On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column 

strown 
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos 

steep' d 
In subterranean damps where the owl peep'd, 
960 Deeming it midnight : — Temples, baths, or halls ? 
Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reap'd 
Prom her research hath been, that these are 
walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount ! 't is thus the mighty 
falls. 

CVIII. 

There is the moral of all human tales ; 
965 'T is but the same rehearsal of the past. 

First Freedom and then Glory — when that 

fails, 
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. 
And History, with all her volumes vast. 
Hath but one page, — 't is better written here 
970 Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amass'd 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear. 
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask. — Away with 
words, draw near, 



38 BYRON 

Cix. 

Admire, exult — despise — laugh, weep, — for 

here 
There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! 
»75 Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, 
Ages and realms are crowded in this span, 
This mountain, whose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of empires pinnacled. 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 
080 Till the sun's rays with added liame were fill'd ! 
Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared 
to build ? 

ex. 

Tully was not so eloquent as thou. 

Thou nameless column with the buried base ! 

Wliat are the laurels of the Caesar's brow ? 

885 Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-])lace. 
Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, 
Titus' or Trajan's ? No — 't is that of Time : 
Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace 
Scoffing ; and apostolic statues climb 

9«o To crush the imperial urn whose ashes slept sublime, 

CXI. 

Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, 
And looking to the stars. They had contain'd 
A spirit which with these would find a home. 
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, 
095 The Koman globe, for after none sustain'd 

But yielded back his conquests : he was more 
Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd 
W^ith household blood and wine, serenely wore 
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. 



CHILDE HAROLD 39 

CXII. 
1000 Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place 
Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the 

steep 
Tarpeian, fittest goal of Treason's race, 
The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap 
Cured all ambition ? Did the conquerors heap 
1005 Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field be- 
low, 
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — 
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, 
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with 
Cicero ! 

CXIII. 

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: 
1010 Plere a proud people's passions were exhaled, 
. From the first hour of empire in the bud 
To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd ; 
But long before had Freedom's face been 

veil'd, 
And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; 
1015 Till every lawless soldier who assail'd 

Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, 
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. 

CXIV. 
Then turn me to her latest tribune's name. 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 
L020 Kedeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
Tlie friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 
Rienzi I last of Romans ! AVhile the tree 
Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 



40 BYRON 

i»25 The forum's champion, and the people's 
chief — 
Her new-born Numa thou — with reign, alas, too 
brief. 

cxv. 

Egeria, sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
As thine ideal breast ! whate'er thou art 

1030 Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, 
Tlie nympholopsy of some fond despair ; 
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth. 
Who found a more than common votary there 
Too much adoring : whatsoe'er thy birth, 

1035 Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied 
forth. 

CXVI. 

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops ; the face- 
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years un wrin- 
kled, 
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, 
1040 Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 
Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep, 
Prison'd in marble ; bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a- gentle leap 
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy 
creep, 

CXVII. 

1045 Fantastically tangled. The green hills 

Are clothed with early blossoms, through the 

grass 
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass ; 



CHILDE HAROLD 41 

Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, 
1080 Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ; 
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes 
Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems colour'd by 
its skies. 

CXVIII. 

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, 
1065 Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating 
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover. 
The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting 
With her most starry canopy ; and seating 
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ? 
1060 This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting 
Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell 
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle ! 

cxix. 

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, 
Blend a celestial with a human heart ; 
1065 And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing. 
Share with immortal transports ? Could thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and impart 
The purity of heaven to earthly joys. 
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — 
iwo The dull satiety which all destroys — 

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which 
cloys ? , 

cxx. 

Alas ! our young affections run to waste, 

Or water but the desert ; whence arise 

But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, 



42 BYRON 

1075 Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, 
Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, 
And trees whose gums are poison ; — such the 

plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies 
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 

108O For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. 

cxxi. 
Oh Love ! no habitant of earth thou art — 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, 
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, 
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
1085 The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; 

The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven. 
Even with its own desiring phantasy. 
And to a thought such shape and image given. 
As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — wearied 
— wrung — and riven. 

CXXII. 

looo Of its own beauty is the mind diseased. 
And fevers into false creation : — where, 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath 

seized ? — 
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 
1006 Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreach'd Paradise of our despair. 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen. 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom 
again ? 

CXXIII. 

Who loves, raves — 't is youth's frenzy ; but the 
cure 



CHILDE HAROLD 43 

1100 Is bitterer still. As charm by charm unwinds 
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure 
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's 
Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, 
1105 Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun. 
Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most 
undone. 

cxxiv. 

We wither from our youth, we gasp away — 
Sick — sick ; unf ound the boon — unslaked the 
thirst, 
1110 Though to the last, in verge of our decay, 

Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
But all too late, — so are we doubly curst. 
Love, fame, ambition, avarice — 't is the same. 
Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst — 
1115 For all are meteors with a different name, 

And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the 
flame. 

cxxv. 

Few — none — find what they love or could have 
loved. 

Though accident, blind contact, and the strong 

Necessity of loving, have removed 
"20 Antipathies — but to recur, ere long, 

Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong ; 

And Circumstance, that unspiritual god 

And miscreator, makes and helps along 

Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, 
1125 Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all 
have trod. 



44 BYRON 

CXXVI. 

Our life is a false nature, 't is not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard decree, 
This uneradicable taint of sin, 
This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree 
1130 Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be 
The skies which rain their plagues on men like 

dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — 
And worse, the woes we see not — which throb 

through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. 

CXXVII. 

1135 Yet let us ponder boldly ; 't is a base 
Abandonment of reason to resign 
Our right of thought, our last and only place 
Of refuge — this, at least, shall still be mine. 
Though from our birth the faculty divine 

1140 Is chain'd and tortured — cabin'd, cribb'd, con- 
fined, 
And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 
Too brightly on the unprepared mind. 
The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the 

blind. 

CXXVIII. 

Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome, 
1145 Collecting the chief trophies of her line, 

Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, — 
Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine 
As 't were its natural torches, for divine 
Should be the light which streams here, to illume 
M50 This long-explored but still exhaustless mine 



CHILDE HAROLD 45 

Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom 
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 

CXXIX. 

Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, 

1155 And shadows forth its glory. There is given 

Unto the things of earth, which Time hath 

bent, 
A spirit's feeling ; and where he hath leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power, 
And magic in the ruin'd battlement, 

1160 For which the palace of the present hour 

Must yield its pomp and wait till ages are its dower. 

cxxx. 

Oh, Time ! the beautifier of the dead, 

Adorner of the ruin, comforter 

And only healer when the heart hath bled — 
1165 Time ! the corrector where our judgments err. 

The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher. 

For all besides are sophists, from thy thrift 

Which never loses though it doth defer — 

Time, the avenger ! unto thee I lift 
1170 My hands and eyes and heart, and crave of thee a 
gift: 

CXXXI. 

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a 

shrine 
And temple more divinely desolate, 
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine. 
Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate : — 
1175 If thou hast ever seen me too elate. 



46 BYRON 

Hear me not ; but if calmly I have borne 
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate 
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn 
This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn ? 

CXXXII. 
1180 And thou, who never yet of human wrong 
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! 
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long — 
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss, 
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss 
1185 For that unnatural retribution — just. 

Had it but been from hands less near — in this 
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust ! 
Dost thou not hear my heart ? — Awake ! thou shalt, 
and must. 

CXXXIII. 
It is not that I may not have incurr'd 
1190 For my ancestral faults or mine the wound 
I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd 
With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound ; 
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground ; 
To thee I do devote it — thou shalt take 
1195 The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and 
found. 
Which if / have not taken for the sake — 
But let that pass — I sleep, but thou shalt yet 
awake. 

cxxxiv. 

And if my voice break forth, 't is not that now 
I shrink from what is suffer'd ; let him speak 
1200 Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, 

Or seen m}^ mind's convulsion leave it weak : 
But in this page a record will I seek. 



CHILDE HAROLD 47 

Not in the air shall these my words disperse, 
Though I be ashes ; a far hour shall wreak 
1205 The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, 

And pile on human heads the mountain of my 
curse I 

cxxxv. 

That curse shall be Forgiveness. Have I not — 
Hear me, my mother Earth ! behold it, Heaven ! — 
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot ? 

1210 Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven ? 

Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, 
Hopes sapp'd, name blighted. Life's life lied 

away? 
And only not to desperation driven. 
Because not altogether of such clay 

1215 As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. 

CXXXVI. 

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
Have I not seen what human things could do? 
From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry few, 
1220 And subtler venom of the reptile crew. 

The Janus glance of whose significant eye. 
Learning to lie with silence, would seem true. 
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh. 
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. 

CXXXVII. 

1225 But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : 
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire. 
And my frame perish even in conquering pain ; 
But there is that within me which shall tire 



48 BYRON 

Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire ; 
1230 Something unearthly which they deem not of, 
Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, 
Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move 
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. 

CXXXVIII. 

The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread 
power ! 

1235 Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour 
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 

1240 Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 
That we become a part of what has been. 
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. 

CXXXIX. 

And here the buzz of eager nations ran. 
In murmur'd pity or loud-roar'd applause, 

1245 As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man. 

And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but be- 
cause 
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws, 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not ? 
What matters where we fall to fill the maws 

1250 Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot ? 
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. 

CXL. 

I see before me the Gladiator lie : 

He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 

Consents to death, but conquers agony. 



CHILDE HAROLD 49 

1255 And his droop'd head sinks gradually low — 

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone, 

1260 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the 
wretch who won. 

CXLI. 

He heard it, but he heeded not— his eyes 
Were with his heart and that was far away ; 
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize. 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
1265 There were his young barbarians all at play, 

There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, 
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday — 
All this rush'd with his blood. — Shall he expire 
And unavenged ? — Arise ! ye Goths, and glut your 
ire ! 

CXLII. 

1270 But here, where Murder breathed her bloody 
steam ; 
And there, where buzzing nations choked the 

ways. 
And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; 
Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise 
1275 Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd. 

My voice sounds much, and fall the stars' faint 

rays 
On the arena void — seats crush'd — walls 
bow'd — 
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely 
loud. 



60 BYRON 

CXLIII. 
A ruin — yet what ruin ! From its mass 
1280 Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd ; 
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, 
And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd. 
Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd ? 
Alas ! developed, opens the decay, 
1285 When the colossal fabric's form is near'd : 
It will not bear the brightness of the day. 
Which streams too much on all years, man, have 
reft away. 

CXLIV. 
But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch and gently pauses there ; 
1290 When the stars twinkle through the loops of 
time. 
And the low night-breeze waves along the air 
The garland forest, which the gray walls wear 
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head ; 
When the light shines serene but doth not 
glare, 
1295 Then in this magic circle raise the dead : 

Heroes have trod this spot — 't is on their dust ye 
tread. 

CXLV. 

' While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; 
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; 
And when Rome falls — the World.' From our 
own land 
1300 Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall 
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call 
Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still 
On their foundations, and unalter'd all ; 



CHILDE HAROLD . 61 

Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, 
1305 The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or 
what ye will. 

CXLVI. 

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods. 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time ; 
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods 
1310 Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man 

plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! 
Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' 

rods 
Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home 
Of art and piety — Pantheon ! — pride of Rome ! 

CXLVII. 

1315 Relic of nobler days and noblest arts ! 

Despoil'd, yet perfect, with thy circle spreads 
A holiness appealing to all hearts — 
To art a model ; and to liim who treads 
Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds 

1320 Her light through thy sole aperture ; to those 
Who worship, here are altars for their beads ; 
And they who feel for genius may repose 
Their eyes on honour'd forms whose busts around 
them close. 

CXLVIII. 

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light 
1325 What do I gaze on ? Nothing : Look again ! 
Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sight — 
Two insulated phantoms of the brain : 
It is not so ; I see them full and plain — 



52 BYRON 

An old man, and a female young and *fai?, 
1330 Fresh as a nursing mother, in. whose vein 

The blood is nectar; — but what doth she there 
With her un mantled neck, and bosom white and bare ? 

CXLIX. 

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, 
Where on the heart and from the heart we took 

1335 Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look 
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook 
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives 
Man knows not, wlien from out its cradled nook 

1340 She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — 

What may the fruit be yet? — I know not, Cain 
was Eve's. 

CL. 

But liere youth offers to old age the food, 
The milk of his own gift: — it is her sire 
To whom she renders back the debt of blood 

1345 Born with lier birth. No ; he shall not expire 
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire 
Of health and holy feeling can provide 
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises 

higher 
Than Egypt's river : — from that gentle side 

1350 Drink, drink and live, old man ! Heaven's realm 
holds no such tide. 

CLI. 

The starry fable of the milky way 

Has not thy story's purity ; it is 

A constellation of a sweeter ray. 

And sacred Nature triumphs more in this 



CHILDE HAROLD 53 

1355 Reverse of her decree than in the abyss 

Where sparkle distant worlds. Oh, holiest nurse ! 
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss 
To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source 
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. 

CLII. 

1300 Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high, 
Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, 
Colossal copyist of deformity. 
Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's 
Enormous model doom'd the artist's toils 

1365 To build for giants, and for his vain earth, 

His shrunken ashes, raise this dome. How smiles 
The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, 
To view the huge design which sprung from such 
a birth I 

CLIII. 

But lo, the dome, the vast and wondrous dome 
1370 To which Diana's marvel was a cell, 

Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb I 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyaena and the jackal in their shade ; 
1375 I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell 

Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey 'd 
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem 
pray'd ; 

CLIV. 

But thou, of temples old or altars new, 
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee — 
1380 Worthiest of Ood, the holy and the true. 
Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
Forsook his former city, what could be, 



64 BYRON 

Of earthly structures, in his honour piled 
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, 
1385 Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 

CLV. 

Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; 
And why ? it is not lessen'd : but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 
1390 Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 
Thy hopes of immortality ; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, 
See thy God face to face as thou dost now 
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. 



1306 



CLVI. 

Thou movest — but increasing with the advance, 
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth 

rise. 
Deceived by its gigantic elegance ; 
Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonise — 
MOO All musical in its immensities ; 

Rich marbles, richer painting, shrines where flame 

The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which vies 

In air with Earth's chief structures, though their 

frame 

Sits on the firm-set ground — and this the clouds 

must claim. 

CLVII^ 

1405 Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must 
break 
To separate contemplation the great whole ; 
And as the ocean many bays will make. 



CHILDE HAROLD 65 

That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul 
To more immediate objects, and control 
1410 Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart 
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 
In mighty graduations, part by part, 
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, 

CLViii. 
Not by its fault — but thine. Our outward sense 

1415 Is but of gradual grasp : and as it is 

That what we have of feeling most intense 
Outstrips our faint expression ; even so this 
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great 

i«o Defies at first our Nature's littleness, 

Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate 
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate. 

CLIX. 
Then pause, and be enlighten'd; there is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 
1425 Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore 
The worship of the place, or the mere praise 
Of art and its great masters, who could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could 

plan ; 
The fountain of sublimity displays 
1430 Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions 
can. 

CLX. 
Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — 
A father's love and mortal's agony 
1435 With an immortal's patience blending. Vain 



56 BYRON 

The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain 
And gripe and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
The old man's clencli ; the long envenoni'd chain 
Rivets the living links, the enormous asp 
14*0 Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. 

CLXI. 

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 
The God of life and poesy and light, — 
The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 
1448 The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
Witli an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain and might 
And majesty flash their full lightnings by, 
Developing in that one glance the Deity. 

CLXII. 

1450 But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, 
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast 
Long'd for a deathless lover from above 
And madden'd in that vision — are exprest 
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd 

1455 The mind with in its most unearthly mood. 

When each conception was a heavenly guest — 
A ray of immortality — and stood, 
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god I 

CLXIII. 
And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven 
1400 The fire which we endure, it was repaid 
By him to whom the energy was given 
Which this poetic marble hath array'd 
With an eternal glory — which, if made 
By human hands, is not of human thought; 



CHILDE HAROLD 57 

"65 And Time himself hath hallowVl it, nor laid 
One ringlet in the dust ; nor hath it caught 
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 
't was wrought. 

CLXIV. 

But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song. 
The being who upheld it through the past? 

1470 Methinks he cometh late and tarriec long. 

He is no more — these breathings are his last ; 
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, 
And he himself as nothing : — if he was 
Aught bnt a phantasy, and could be class'd 

1475 With forms which live and suffer — let that pass — 
His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, 

CLXV. 

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all 
That we inherit in its mortal shroud. 
And spreads the dim and universal pall 

1480 Through which all things grow phantoms ; and 
the cloud 
Between ns sinks and all which ever glow'd, 
Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays 
A melancholy halo scarce allow'd 
To hover on the verge of darkness ; — rays 

"ss Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, 

CLXVI. 

And send us prying into the abyss. 
To gather what we shall be when the frame 
Shall be resolved to something less- than this 
Its wretc^hed essence ; and to dream of fame, 
1400 And wipe the dust from off the idle name 

We never more shall hear, — but never more. 



68 BYRON 

Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same: 
It is enough in sooth that ofice we bore 
These fardels of the heart — the heart whose sweat 
was gore. 

CLXVII. 
1495 Ilark I forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 
A long low distant murmur of dread sound, 
Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
With some deep and immedicable wound ; 
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending 
ground ; 
1500 The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief 
Seems royal still, though with her head dis- 
crowned ; 
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief 
She clasps a babe to whom her breast yields no 
relief. 

CLXVIII. 

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou ? 

1506 Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead ? 
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low 
Some less majestic, less beloved head ? 
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, 
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, 

1510 Death hush'd that pang for ever ; with thee fled 
The present happiness and promised joy 
Which fiird the imperial isles so full it seem'd to 

cloy. 

CLXIX. 

Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, 
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored ! 
1515 Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, 
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to 
hoard 



CHILDE HAROLD 59 

Her many griefs for One ; for she had pour'd 
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head 
Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely lord, 
1520 And desolate consort — vainly wert thou wed ! 
The husband of a year ! the father of the dead ! 

CLXX. 

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made ; 
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes ; in the dust 
The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, 

1525 The love of millions ! How we did intrust 
Futurity to her ! and, though it must 
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd 
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd 
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd 

1530 Like stars to shepherds' eyes : — 't was but a meteor 
beam'd. 

CLXXI. 

Woe unto us, not her ; for she sleeps well : 
The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue 
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle. 
Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung 
1535 Its knell in princely ears till the o'er-stung 

Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate 
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath 

flung 
Against their blind omnipotence a weight 
Within the opposing scale which crushes soon or 

late, — 

CLXXII. 

1540 These might have been her destiny ; but no, 
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair. 
Good without effort, great without a foe ; 
But now a bride and mother — and now there! 



60 BYRON 

How many ties did that stern moment tear ! 
1545 From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast 
Is link'd the electric chain of that despair, 
Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest 
The land which loved thee so that none could love 
thee best. 

CLXXIII. 

Lo, Nemi ! naveird in the woody hills 
1550 So far, that the uprooting wind which tears 

The oak from his foundation, and which spills 
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake ; — 
1555 And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears 
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake. 
All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 

CLXXIV. 

And near Albano's scarce divided waves 
Shine from a sister valley ; and afar 
1560 The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, 
'Arms and the Man,' whose re-ascending star 
Rose o'er an empire : but beneath thy right 
Tully reposed from Rome ; and where yon bar 
1565 Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight 

The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's de- 
light. 

CLXXV. 

But I forget. — My Pilgrim's shrine is won, 
And he and I must part — so let it be : 
His task and mine alike are nearly done; 
1570 Yet once more let us look upon the sea ; 



CHILDE HAROLD 61 

The midland ocean breaks on him and me, 
And from the Alban Mount we now behold 
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold 
1575 Those waves, we f ollow'd on till the dark Euxine 
roU'd 

CLXXVI. 

Upon the blue Symplegades. Long years — 
Long, though not very many — since have done 
Their work on both ; some suffering and some 

tears 
Have left us nearly where we had begun : 
1580 Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run ; 
We have had our reward, and it is here, — 
That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, 
And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear 
As if there were no man tb trouble what is clear. 

^y^ CLXXVII. 

1585 Oh that the Desert were my dwelling-place, 
With one fair Spirit for my minister. 
That I might all forget the human race, 
And, hating no one, love but only her ! 
Ye Elements, in whose ennobling stir 

1590 I feel myself exalted, can ye not 

Accord me such a being ? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot. 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot f 

CLXXVIII. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
1595 There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes. 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar; 



62 BYRON 

I love not Man the less, but Nature more, 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
1800 From all I may be or have been before, 
To mingle witli the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. 

CLXXIX. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 
1006 Man marks the earth with ruin, his control 
Stops with the shore ; u})on the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own. 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
wio He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and un- 
known. 

CLXXX. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he 
wields 

1815 For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning liim from thy bosom to the skies. 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay, 

1820 And dashest him again to earth : — there let him 
lay. 

CLXXXI. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals. 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 



CtilLDE HAROLD 63 

1625 Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee and arbiter of war, — 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 

CLXXXII. 

1630 Thy shores are empires, changed in all save 
thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
Thy waters wash'd them power while they were 

free. 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
1835 Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play ; 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow ; 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. 

CLXXXIII. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
1840 Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time. 

Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sub- 
lime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
1645 Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 

The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, 
alone. 

CLXXXIV. 

And I have loved thee. Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 



64 BYRON 

1650 Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy 
I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — 't was a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 

1855 And trusted to thy billows far and near, 

And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 

^ CLXXXV. 

My task is done — my song nath ceased — my 

theme 
Has died into an echo ; it is fit 
The spell should break of this protracted dream. 
1600 The torch shall be extinguished which hath 
lit 
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — 
Would it were worthier! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions ilit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow 
1665 Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and 
low. 

CLXXXVI. 

Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger ; — yet — fare- 
well ! 
Ye, who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene 
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell 
1670 A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 
A single recollection, not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell'; 
Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain. 
If such there were — with you^ the moral of his 
strain I 



THE PRISOITER OF CHILLON. 

A FABLE. 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

The words " a fable " which Byron added to the title of this 
poem should put one on his guard against taking the poem as an 
historical narrative, or treating it in its parts as true to the lit- 
eral facts of Bonnivard's experience. Byron wrote the poem in 
June, 1816, at a small inn in the little village of Ouchy, near 
Lausanne on the shores of Lake Geneva, where he happened to 
be detained a couple of days by stress of weather. In a notice 
prefixed to the poem he wrote : " When this poem was com- 
posed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, 
or I should have endeavored to dignify the subject by an attempt 
to celebrate his courage and his virtues." As it was he had been 
stirred by the tradition of the patriot's confinement in the castle 
which he had just visited, and with his ardent passion for political 
liberty which found expression later in Italy and in Greece, he 
used the incident for an impassioned poetic monologue. 

The tourist to-day who visits the castle of Chillon finds abun- 
dant historical information respecting the castle and the confine- 
ment of Bonnivard. Byron's poem has lifted the place into 
great distinction. The castle stands on a rock in the lake, not 
far from Montreux, and is approached by a bridge. In the inte- 
rior is a range of dungeons. Eight pillars are sliown, one of 
which is half built into the wall. The prisoners, who were some- 
times reformers, sometimes prisoners of state, were fettered to 
the pillars, and the pavement is worn with the footsteps of their 
brief pace. Francis Bonnivard was born in 1496. He was of 
gentle birth and inherited a rich priory near Geneva. When the 
Duke of Savoy attacked the republic of Geneva, Bonnivard 
joined in the defence, and became thus the enemy of the Duke. 
Subsequently, when in the service of the republic, he fell into 
the power of the Duke, who imprisoned him for six years in the 
castle of Chillon. He was released by the Genevese in 1536, 
and led a stormy existence until his death in 1571. 



66 BYRON 



My hair is gray, but not with years, 
Nor grew it white 
In a single night, 

As men's have grown from sudden fears. 
6 My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, 
But rusted with a vile repose. 

For they have been a dungeon's spoil. 
And mine has been the fate of those 

To whom tlie goodly earth and air 
10 Are banned, and barred — forbidden fare ; 

But this was for my father's faith 

I suffered chains and courted death ; 

That father perished at the stake 

For tenets he would not forsake ; 
15 And for the same his lineal race 

In darkness found a dwelling-place ; 

We were seven — who now are one, 
Six in youth, and one in age, 

Finished as they had begun, 
20 Proud of Persecution's rage ; 

One in fire, and two in field. 

Their belief with blood have sealed : 

Dying as their father died. 

For the God their foes denied ; — 
25 Three were in a dungeon cast. 

Of whom this wreck is left the last. 

II. 

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould 
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, 
There are seven columns massy and gray, 
JO Dim with a dull imprisoned ray. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILL ON 67 

A sunbeam which hath lost its way, 
And through the crevice and the cleft 
0£ the thick wall is fallen and left : 
Creeping o'er tha floor so damp, 

35 Like a marsh's meteor lamp : 
And in each pillar there is a ring, 

And in each ring there is a chain ; 
That iron is a cankering thing, 

For in these limbs its teeth remain, 

40 With marks that will not wear away 
Till I have done with this new day. 
Which now is painful to these eyes. 
Which have not seen the sun so rise 
For years — I cannot count them o'er, 

45 1 lost their long and heavy score 
When my last brother drooped and died, 
And I lay living by his side. 

III. 

They chained us each to a column stone, 

And we were three — yet, each alone ; 
50 We could not move a single pace. 

We could not see each other's face, 

But with that pale and livid light 

That made us strangers in our sight : 

And thus together — yet apart, 
65 Fettered in hand, but joined in heart ; 

'T was still some solace, in the dearth 

Of the pure elements of earth. 

To hearken to each other's speech, 

And each turn comforter to each 

31. One of the impressive sights in the dungeon now, as it was 
in Byron's day, is the beams of the setting sun streaming through 
the narrow loopholes into the gloomy recesses. 



68 BYRON 

60 With some new hope or legend old, 
Or song heroically bold ; 
But even these at length grew cold. 
Our voices took a dreary tone, 
An echo of the dungeon stone, 
65 A grating sound — not full and free 
As they of yore were wont to be ; 
It might be fancy — but to me 
They never sounded like our own. 

IV. 

I was the eldest of the three, 
70 And to uphold and cheer the rest 
I ought to do — and did my best — 
And each did well in his degree. 

The youngest, whom my father loved, 
Because our mother's brow was given 
75 To him — with eyes as blue as heaven, 
For liltn my soul was sorely moved: 
And truly might it be distressed 
To see such ])ird in such a nest ; 
For he was beautiful as day — 
80 (When day was beautiful to me 
As to young eagles being free) — 
A polar day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer 's gone, 
Its sleepless summer of long light, 
85 The snow-clad offspring of the sun : 
And thus he was as pure and bright. 
And in his natural spirit gay, 
With tears for naught but others' ills. 
And then they flowed like mountain rills, 
90 Unless he could assuage the woe 
Which he abhorred to view below. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 69 



The other was as pure of mind, 
But formed to combat with his kind ; 
Strong in his frame, and of a mood 
95 Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, 
And perished in the foremost rank 

With joy : — but not in chains to pine : 
His spirit withered with their clank, 

I saw it silently decline — 
100 And so perchance in sooth did mine ; 
But yet I forced it on to cheer 
Those relics of a home so dear. 
He was a hunter of the hills, 

Had followed there the deer and wolf ; 
103 To him this dungeon was a gulf. 
And fettered feet the worst of ills. 

VI. 

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls, 

A thousand feet in depth below 

Its massy waters meet and flow ; 
uo Thus much the fathom-line was sent 

From Chillon's snow-white battlement. 
Which round about the wave inthrals : 

A double dungeon wall and wave 

Have made — and like a living grave. 
115 Below the surface of the lake 

The dark vault lies wherein we lay. 

We heard it ripple night and day ; 
Sounding o'er our heads it knocked 

And I have felt the winter's spray 
120 Wash through the bars when winds were high 

107. Lake Leman is another uame for Lake Geneva. 



70 BYRON 

And wanton in the happy sky ; 

And then the very rock liath rocked, 
And I have felt it shake, unshocked, 

Because I could have smiled to see 
125 The death that would have set me free. 

VII. 

I said my nearer brother pined, 
I said his mighty heart declined, 
He loathed and put away his food ; 
It was not that 't was coarse and rude, 

130 For we were used to hunter's fare, 
And for the like had little care : 
The milk drawn from the mountain goat 
Was changed for water from the moat, 
Our bread was such as captive's tears 

135 Have moistened many a thousand years, 
Since man first peut liis fellow men 
Like brutes within an iron den ; 
But what were these to us or him ? 
These wasted not his heart or limb ; 

140 My brother's soul was of that mould 
Which in a palace had grown cold, 
Had his free breathing been denied 
The range of the steep mountain's side 
But why delay the truth ? — he died. 

145 1 saw, and could not hold his head, 

Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead, — 
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 
He died, and they unlocked his chain, 

150 And scooped for him a shallow grave 
Even from the cold earth of our cave. 
I begged them, as a boon, to lay 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 71 

His corse in dust whereon the day- 
Might shine — it was a foolish thought, 

155 But then within my brain it wrought, 
That even in death his freeborn breast 
In such a dungeon could not rest. 
I might have spared my idle prayer — 
They coldly laughed — and laid him there : 

160 The flat and turfless earth above 
The being we so much did love ; 
His empty chain above it leant. 
Such murder's fitting monument ! 

VIII. 
But he, the favorite and the flower, 
165 Most cherished since his natal hour, 
His mother's image in fair face. 
The infant love of all his race. 
His martyred father's dearest thought, 
My latest care, for whom I sought 
170 To hoard my life, that his might be 
Less wretched now, and one day free ; 
He, too, who yet had held untired 
A spirit natural or inspired — 
He, too, was struck, and day by day 
175 Was withered on the stalk away. 
Oh, God ! it is a fearful thing 
To see the human soul take wing 
In any shape, in any mood : — 
I 've seen it rushing forth in blood, 
180 1 've seen it on the breaking ocean 
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 
I 've seen the sick and ghastly bed 
Of Sin delirious with its dread : 
But these were horrors — this was woe 



72 BYRON 

185 Unmixecl with such — but sure and slow ; 
He faded, and so calm and meek, 
So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 
So tearless, yet so tender — kind. 
And grieved for those he left behind ; 

190 With all the while a cheek whose bloom 
Was as a mockery of the tomb. 
Whose tints as gently sunk away 
As a departing rainbow's ray — 
An eye of most transparent light, 

195 That almost made the dungeon bright, 
And not a word of murmur — not 
A groan o'er liis untimely lot, — - 
A little talk of better days, 
A little hope my own to raise, 

200 For I was sunk in silence — lost 
In this last loss, of all the most ; 
And then the sighs he would suppress 
Of fainting nature's feebleness, 
^lore slowly drawn, grew less and less: 

205 1 listened, but I could not hear — 
I called, for I was wild with fear ; 
I knew 't was hoi)eless, but my dread 
Would not be thus admonished ; 
I called, and thought 1 heard a sound — 

ao I burst my chain with one strong bound, 
And rushed to him : — I found him not, 
/only stirred in this black spot, 
/ only lived — / only drew 
The accursed breath of dungeon-dew ; 

215 The last — the sole; — the dearest link 
Between me and the eternal brink. 
Which bound me to my failing race, 
Was broken in this fatal place. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILL ON 73 

One on the earth, and one beneath — 
220 My brothers — both had ceased to breathe ; 

I took that hand which lay so still, 

Alas ! my own was full as chill ; 

I had not strength to stir, or strive. 

But felt that I was still alive — 
225 A frantic feeling, when we know 

That what we love shall ne'er be so. 
I know not why 
I could not die, 

I had no earthly hope — but faith, 
230 And that forbade a selfish death. 

IX. 

What next befell me then and there 
I know not well — I never knew — 

First came the loss of light, and air. 
And then of darkness too : 
235 1 had no thought, no feeling — none — 

Among the stones I stood a stone, 

And was, scarce conscious what I wist, 

As shrubless crags within the mist ; 

For all was blank, and bleak, and gray, 
240 It was not night — it was not day. 

It was not even the dungeon-light, 

So hateful to my heavy sight. 

But vacancy absorbing space, 

And fixedness — without a place ; 
245 There were no stars — no earth — no time — 

No check — no change — no good — no crime — 

But silence, and a stirless breath 

Which neither was of life nor death ; 

A sea of stagnant idleness, 
25» Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless I 



74 BYRON 



A light broke in upon my brain, — 

It was the carol of a bird ; 
It ceased, and then it came again, 
The sweetest song ear ever heard, 

255 And mine was thankful till my eyes 
Kan over with the glad surprise, 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery ; 
But then by dull degrees came back 

260 My senses to their wonted track, 
I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before, 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 

265 But through the crevice where it came 
That bird was perched, as fond and tame. 

And tamer than upon the tree ; 
A lovely bird, witli azure wings. 
And song that said a thousand things, 

ro And seemed to say them all for me I 
I never saw its like before, 
I ne'er shall see its likeness more : 
It seemed like me to want a mate. 
But was not half so desolate, 

275 And it was come to love me when 
None lived to love me so again. 
And cheering from my dungeon's brink. 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 
I know not if it late were free, 

280 Or broke its cage to perch on mine. 
But knowing well captivity, 

Sweet bird ! I could not wish for thine I 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 75 

Or if it were, in winged guise, 

A visitant from Paradise ; 
285 For — Heaven forgive that thought ! the while 

Which made me both to weep and smile ; 

I sometimes deemed that it might be 

My brother's soul come down to me ; 

But then at last away it flew, 
290 And then 't was mortal — well I knew, 

For he would never thus have flown, 

And left me twice so doubly lone, — 

Lone — as the corse within its shroud, 

Lone — as a solitary cloud, 
295 A single cloud on a sunny day. 

While all the rest of heaven is clear, 

A frown upon the atmosphere. 

That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. 

XI. 

300 A kind of change came in my fate, 

My keepers grew compassionate ; 

I know not what had made them so. 

They were inured to sights of woe. 

But so it was : — my broken chain 
805 With links unfastened did remain, 

And it was liberty to stride 

Along my cell from side to side. 

And up and down, and then athwart, 

And tread it over every part ; 
310 And round the pillars one by one, 

Returning where my walk begun. 

Avoiding only, as I trod, 

My brothers' graves without a sod ; 

For if I thoucrht with heedless tread 



76 BYRON 

815 My step profaned their lowly bed, 
My breath came gaspingly and thick, 
And my crushed heart fell blind and sick 

XII. 

I made a footing in the wall, 
It was not therefrom to escape, 

820 For I had buried one and all 

Who loved me in a human shape ; 
And the whole earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me : 
No child — no sire — no kin had I, 

825 No partner in my misery ; 

I thought of this, and I was glad, 

For thought of them had made me mad ; 

But I was curious to ascend 

To my barred windows, and to bend 

330 Once more, upon the mountains high, 
The quiet of a loving eye. 

XIII. 

I saw them — and they were the same. 

They were not changed like me in frame ; 

I saw their thousand years of snow 
335 On high — their wide long lake below, 

And the blue Khone in fullest flow ; 

I heard the torrents leap and gush 

O'er channelled rock and broken bush ; 

I saw the white-walled distant town, 
340 And whiter sails go skimming down ; 

And then there was a little isle, 

^1. Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not 
far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only one I could 
perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its cir- 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 11 

Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view ; 
A small green isle it seemed no more, 

345 Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 
But in it there were three tall trees, 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze. 
And by it there were waters flowing. 
And on it there were young flowers growing, 

350 Of gentle breath and hue. 

The fish swam by the castle wall. 
And they seemed joyous each and all ; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methouo-ht he never flew so fast 

355 As then to me he seemed to fly. 
And then new tears came in my eye. 
And I felt troul)led — and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain ; 
And when I did descend again, 

360 The darkness of my dim abode 
Fell on me as a heavy load ; 
It was as is a new-dug grave. 
Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 

' And yet my glance, too much oppressed, 

365 Had almost need of such a rest. 

XIV. 

It might be months, or years, or days, 
I kept no count — I took no note, 

I had no hope my eyes to raise. 

And clear them of their dreary mote ; 
370 At last men came to set me free, 

cumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three), 
and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect 
upon the view. Byron. 



78 BYRON 

I asked not why, and recked not where, 
It was at length the same to me, 
Fettered or fetterless to be, 
1 learned to love despair. 

375 And thus w^hen they appeared at last, 
And all my bonds aside were cast, 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A liermitage — and all my own ! 
And half 1 felt as they were come 

380 To tear me from a second home : 

With spiders I had friendship made, '^ 
And watehed them in their sullen trade, 
Had seen the mice by moonlight i)lay. 
And why should I feel less than they ? 

385 We were all inmates of one place, 
And I, the monarch of each race. 
Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell ! 
In quiet we had learned to dwell — 
My very chains and I grew friends, 

390 So nmch a long communion tends 
To make us what we are : — even I 
liegained my freedom with a sigh, y' 



MAZEPPA. 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. - 

This poem was written .it Venice and Ravenna in the autumn 
of 1818. Byron drew his story from an incident related by 
Voltaire in his History of Charles XII., which is as follows : — 

The Ukraine (the country of the Cossacks) has always as- 
pired to liberty ; but being surrounded by Muscovy, the domin- 
ions of the Grand Seignior, and Poland, it has been obliged to 
choose a protector, and, consequently, a master, in one of these 
three States. The Ukrainians at first put themselves under the 



MAZEPPA 79 

protection of the Poles, who treated them with great severity. 
They afterwards submitted to the Russians, who governed 
them with despotic sway. They had originally the privilege of 
electing a prince under the name of general ; but they were 
soon deprived of that right, and their general was nominated by 
the court of Moscow. 

The person who then filled that station was a Polish gentle- 
man, named Mazeppa, and born in the palatinate of Podolia. 
He had been brought up as a page to John Casimir, and had 
received some tincture of learning in his court. An intrigue 
which he had had in his youth with the lady of a Polish gentle- 
man, having been discovered, the husband caused him to be 
bound stark naked upon a wild horse, and let him go in that 
condition." The horse, which had been brought out of Ukraine, 
returned to its own country, and carried Mazeppa along with 
it, half-dead with hunger and fatigue. Some of the country 
people gave him assistance ; and he lived among them for a 
long time, and signalized himself in several excursions against 
the Tartars. The superiority of his knowledge gained him 
great respect among the Cossacks ; and his reputation daily 
increasing, the czar found it necessary to make him prince of 
the Ukraine. 



'T WAS after dread Pultowa's day, 

When fortune left the royal Swede, 
Around a slaughter'd army lay, 

No more to combat and to bleed. 
5 The power and glory of the war, 

Faithless as their vain votaries, men, 
Had pass'd to the triumphant Czar, 

And Moscow's walls were safe again, 
Until a day more dark and drear, 
10 And a more memorable year, 
Should give to slaughter and to shame 
A mightier host and haughtier name ; 
A greater wreck, a deeper fall, 
A shock to one — a thunderbolt to alL 



80 BYRON 

n. 

15 Such was the hazard of the die ; 

The wouiuIlhI Charles was taught to fly 

By day and iii<;ht through field and flood, 

Stain'd with his own and subjects' blood ; 

For thousands fell that flight to aid : 
20 And not a voice was heard t' ui)braid 

Ambition in his humbled hour, 

When truth had naught to dread from power. 

His horse was slain, and Gieta gave 

His own — and died the Russians' slave. 
v> This too sinks after many a league 

Of well-sustain \1, but vain fatigue ; 

And in the depth of forests darkling, 

The watch-fires in the distance sparkling — 
The beacons of surrounding foes — 
10 A king must lay his limbs at length. 
Are these the laurels and repose 

For which the nations strain their strength ? 

They laid him by a savage tree, 

In outworn nature's agony ; 
55 His wounds were stiff — his limbs were stark - 

The heavy hour was chill and dark ; 

The fever in his blood forbade 

A transient slumber's fitful aid : 

And thus it was ; but yet through all, 
40 Kinglike the monarch bore his fall, 

And made, in this extreme of ill. 

His pangs the vassals of his will : 

All silent and subdued were they. 

As once the nations round him lay. 



MAZEPPA 81 

III. 

45 A band of chiefs I — alas I how few, 

Since but the fleeting of a day 

Had thinn'd it ; but this wreck was true 

And chivalrous : upon the clay- 
Each sate him down, all sad and mute, 
50 Beside his monarch and his steed, 

For danger levels man and brute, 
And all are fellows in their need. 

Among the rest, Mazeppa made 

His pillow in an old oak's shade — 
55 Himself as rough, and scarce less old. 

The Ukraine's hetman, calm and bold. 

But first, outspent with his long course. 

The Cossack prince rubb'd down his horse, 

And made for him a leafy bed, 
60 And smooth'd his fetlocks and his mane, 
And slack'd his girth, and stripp'd his rein, 

And joy'd to see how well he fed ; 

For until now he had the dread 

His wearied courser might refuse 
65 To browse beneath the midnight dews : 

But he was hardy as his lord. 

And little cared for bed and board ; 

But spirited and docile too ; 

Whate'er was to be done, would do. 
70 Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb, 

All Tartar-like he carried him ; 

Obey'd his voice, and came to call, 

And knew him in the midst of all : 

Though thousands were around, — and Night, 
75 Without a star, pursued her flight, — 
5G. Hetman, a Cossack chief. 



82 BYRON 

That steed from sunset until dawn 
His chief would follow like a fawn. 

IV. 

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, 
And laid liis lance beneath his oak, 

80 Felt if his arms in order good 
The long day's march had well withstood - 
If still the powder nird the pan, 

And flints unloosen'd kept their lock — 
His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt, 

85 And whether they had chafed his belt — 
And next the venerable man. 
From out his haversack and can, 

Prepared and spread his slender stock ; 
And to the monarch and his men 

90 The whole or portion offer'd then 
With far less of inquietude 
Than courtiers at a banquet would. 
And Charles of this his slender share 
AVith smiles partook a moment there, 

95 To force of cheer a greater show. 
And seem above both wounds and woe ; — 
And then he said — " Of all our band. 
Though firm of heart and strong of hand, 
In skirmish, march, or forage, none 

100 Can less have said or more have done 
Than thee, iVIazeppa ! On the earth 
So fit a pain had never birth. 
Since Alexander's days till now, 
As thy Bucephalus and thou : 

105 All Scythia's fame to thine should yield 
For pricking on o'er flood and field." 
Mazeppa answer'd — '' 111 betide 



MAZEPPA 83 

The school wherein I learn'd to ride ! " 

Quoth Charles — " Old Hetman, wherefore so, 
uo Since thou hast learn'd the art so well ? " 

Mazeppa said — " 'T were long to tell ; 

And we have many a league to go, 

With every now and then a blow, 

And ten to one at least the foe, 
U5 Before our steeds may graze at ease 

Beyond the swift Borysthenes ; 

And, sire, your limbs have need of rest, 

And I will be the sentinel 

Of this your troop." — " But I request," 
120 Said Sweden's monarch, " thou wilt tell 

This tale of thine, and I may reap. 

Perchance, from this the boon of sleep ; 

For at this moment from my eyes 

The hope of present slumber flies." 

125 " Well, sire, with such a hope, I '11 track 
My seventy years of memory back : 
I think 't was in my twentieth spring, — 
Ay, 't was, — when Casimir was king — 
John Casimir, — I was his page 

130 Six summers, in my earlier age. 
A learned monarch, faith ! was he, 
And most unlike your majesty : 
He made no wars, and did not gain 
New realms to lose them back again ; 

135 And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) 
He reign 'd in most unseemly quiet ; 
Not that he had no cares to vex. 
He loved the muses and the sex ; 
And sometimes these so froward are, 

140 They made him wish himself at war ; 



84 BYRON 

But soon his wrath being o'er, he took 
Another mistress, or new book. 
And then he gave prodigious fetes — 
All Warsaw gather'd round his gates 
145 To gaze upon his splendid court, 

And dames, and chiefs, of princely port : 
lie was the Polish Solomon, 
So sung his poets, all but one, 
Who, being unpension'd, made a satire, 
150 And boasted that he coukl not flatter. 
It was a court of jousts and mimes, . 
Wliere every courtier tried at rhymes ; 
Even I for once produced some verses. 
And sign'd ni)^ odes ' Despairing Thyrsis.' 
155 There was a certain Palatiue, 

A count of far and higli descent, 
Rich as a salt or silver mine ; 
And lie was proud, ye may divine, 
As if from heaven he had been sent. 
160 He had such wealth in blood and ore 

As few coidd match beneath the throne ; 
And he would gaze upon his store, 
And o'er his pedigree would pore, 
Until by some confusion led, 
165 Which almost look'd like want of head. 
He thouufht their merits were his own. 
His wife was not of his opinion — 
His junior she by thirty years — 
Grew daily tired of his dominion ; 
170 And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, 
To virtue a few farewell tears, 
A restless dream or two, some glances 
At Warsaw's youth, some songs, and dances, 
157. In Poland the salt mines were a great source of wealth. 



MAZEPPA 85 

Awaited but the usual chances, 
175 (Those happy accidents which render 
The coldest dames so very tender,) 
To deck her Count with titles given, 
'T is said, as passports into heaven ; 
But, strange to say, they rarely boast 
ISO Of these, who have deserved them most. 



" I was a goodly stripling then ; 
At seventy years I so may say. 
That there were few, or boys or men. 
Who, in my dawning time of day, 
185 Of vassal or of knight's degree, 

Could vie in vanities with me ; 

For I had strength, youth, gaiety, 

A port, not like to this ye see. 

But as smooth as all is rugged now ; 
190 For time, and care, and war, have ploughed 

My very soul from out my brow ; 
And thus I should be disavow'd 

By all my kind and kin, could they 

Compare my day and yesterday. 
195 This change was wrought, too, long ere age 

Had ta'en my features for his page : 

With years, ye know, have not declined 

My strength, my courage, or my mind. 

Or at this hour I should not be 
200 Telling old tales beneath a tree. 

With starless skies my canopy. 

But let me on : Theresa's form — 

Methinks it glides before me now. 

Between me and yon chestnut's bough, 
206 The memory is so quick and warm ; 



86 BYRON 

And yet I find no words to tell 

The shape of her I loved so well. 

She had the Asiatic eye, 

Such as our Turkish neighbourhood, 
210 Hath mingled with our Polish blood, 

Dark as above us is the sky ; 

But through it stole a tender light, 

Like the first nioonrise of niidnlght ; 

Large, darlv, and swimming in the stream, 
215 Which sceniM to melt to its own beam ; 

All love, half languor, and half lire. 

Like saints that at the stake expire, 

And lift their rai)tured looks on high 

As though it were a joy to die ; — 
220 A brow like a midsummer lake. 

Transparent with the sun therein, 

"When waves no murnnir dare to nuike, 
And heaven beholds her face within ; 

A cheek and li}) — but why ])rocccd ? 
225 I loved her then — 1 love her still ; 

And such as I am, love indeed 

In fierce extremes — in good and ill ; 

But still we love even in our rage. 

And haunted to our very age 
230 With the vain shadow of the past, 

As is Mazeppa to the last. 

VI. 

" We met — we gazed — I saw, and sigh'd, 
She did not speak, and yet replied : 
There are ten thousand tones and signs 
235 We hear and see, but none defines — 
Involuntary sparks of thought. 
Which strike from out the heart o'erwrought 



MAZEPPA 87 

And form a strange intelligence 
Alike mysterious and intense, 
240 Which link the burning chain that binds, 
Without their will, young hearts and minds : 
Conveying, as the electric wire, 
We know not how, the absorbing fire. — 
I saw, and sigh'd — in silence wept, 
245 And still reluctant distance kept. 
Until I was made known to her. 
And we might then and there confer 
Without suspicion — then, even then, 
I long VI, and was resolved to speak ; 
250 But on my lips they died again. 

The accents tremulous and weak, 
Until one hour. — There is a game, 
A frivolous and foolish play. 
Wherewith we while away the day ; 
255 It is — I have forgot the name — 
And we to this, it seems, were set. 
By some strange chance, which I forget : 
I reckon'd not if I won or lost. 
It was enough for me to be 
260 So near to hear, and oh ! to see 
The being whom I loved the most. 
I watch'd her as a sentinel, 
(May ours this dark night watch as well !) 
Until I saw, and thus it was, 
265 That she was pensive, nor perceived 
Her occupation, nor was grieved 
Nor glad to lose or gain ; but still 
Play'd on for hours, as if her will 
Yf t bound her to the place, though not 
270 That hers might be the winning lot. 

Then through my brain the thought did pass 



88 BYRON 

Even as a flash of lightning there, 
That there was something in her air 
Which would not doom me to despair ; 

275 And on the thought my words broke forth, 
All incoherent as they were — 
Their eloquence was little worth. 
But yet she listen'd — 't is enough — 
Who listens once will listen twice ; 

280 Her heart, be sure, is not of ice, 
And one refusal no rebuff. 

VII. 

" I loved, and was beloved again — 
They tell nic, sire, you never knew 
Those gentle frailties ; if 't is true, , 
285 1 shorten all my joy or pain ; 

To you 't would seem absurd as vain ; 
But all men are not born to reign. 
Or o'er their passions, or as you 
Thus o'er tliemselves and nations too. 
290 I am — or rather icas — a prince, 

A chief of thousands, and could lead 
Them on where each would foremost bleed ; 
But could not o'er myself evince 
The like control. — But to resume : 
295 I loved, and was beloved again ; 
In sooth, it is a happy doom, 

But yet where happiest ends in pain. — 
We met in secret, and the hour 
Which led me to that lady's bower 
300 Was fiery Expectation's dower. 

My days and nights were nothing — all 
Except that hour which doth recall 
In the long lapse from youth to age 



MAZEPPA 89 

No other like itself — I 'd give 
305 The Ukraine back again to live 
It o'er once more — and be a page, 
The happy page, who was the lord 
Of one soft heart and his own sword, 
And had no other gein nor wealth 
310 Save nature's gift of youth and health. — 
We met in secret — doubly sweet, 
Some say, they find it so to meet ; 
I know not that — I would have given 
My life but to have call'd her mine 
315 In the full view of earth and heaven ; 
For I did oft and long repine 
That we could only meet by stealth. 

VIII. 

" For lovers there are many eyes. 

And such there were on us ; — the devil 
320 On such occasions should be civil — 
The devil ! — I 'm loth to do him wrong, 

It might be some untoward saint. 
Who would not be at rest too long 
But to his pious bile gave vent — 
325 But one fair night, some lurking spies 
Surprised and seized us both. 
The Count was something more than wroth — 

I was unarm'd ; but if in steel. 
All cap-a-pie from head to heel, 
330 What 'gainst their numbers could I do ? — 
'T was near his castle, far away 

From city or from succour near, 
And almost on the break of day ; 
I did not think to see another, 
335 My moments seem'd reduced to few ; 



90 BYRON 

And with one prayer to Mary Mother, 
And, it may be, a saint or two, 

As I resigned me to my fate. 

They led me to the castle gate : 
MO Tlieresa's doom I never knew, 

Our lot was henceforth separate — 

An angry man, ye may opine. 

Was he, the proud Count Palatine ; 

And he had reason good to be, 
«5 But he was most enraged lest such 
An accident should chance to touch 

Upon his future pedigree ; 

Nor less amazed, that such a blot 

His noble 'scutcheon should have got, 
w) While he was highest of his line ; 
Because unto himself he scem'd 
Tlie lirst of men, nor less he dcem'd 

In others' eyes, and most in mine. 

'Sdeath ! with a p(ff/(' — perchance a king 
»5 Had reconcik'd him to tlie thing ; 

But with a stripling of a page — 

I felt — but cannot paint his rage. 

IX. 

" ' Bring forth the horse ! ' — the horse was brought; 

In truth, he was a noble steed, 
960 A Tartar of the Ukraine breed. 

Who look'd as though the speed of thought 
Were in his limbs ; but he was wild. 

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught^ 
With spur and bridle undefiled — 
365 'T was but a day he had been caught ; 
And snorting, with erected mane. 
And struggling fiercely, but in vain, 



MAZEPPA 91 

In the full foam of wrath and dread 
To me the desert-born was led. 
370 They bound me on, that menial throng, 
Upon his back with many a thong ; 
They loosed him with a sudden lash — 
Away ! — away ! — and on we dash ! — 
Torrents less rapid and less rash. 

X. 

375 " Away ! — away ! — My breath was gone — 
I saw not where he hurried on : 
'T was scarcely yet the break of day, 
And on he foam'd — away ! — away I — 
The last of human sounds which rose, 

880 As I was darted from my foes, 

Was the wild shout of savage laughter. 
Which on tlie wind came roaring after 
A moment from that rabble rout ; 
With su(klen wrath I wrench'd my head, 

385 And snapp'd the cord, which to the mane 
Had bound my neck in lieu of rein, 
And writhing half my form about, 
Howl'd back my curse ; but 'midst the tread, 
The thunder of my courser's speed, 

390 Perchance they did not hear nor heed : 
It vexes me — for I would fain 
Have paid their insult back again. 
I paid it weU in after days : 
There is not of that castle gate, 

395 Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight. 
Stone, bar, moat, bridge, or barrier left ; 
Nor of its fields a blade of grass. 
Save what grows on a ridge of wall. 
Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall ; 



92 BYRON 

400 And many a time ye there might pass, 
Nor dream that e'er that fortress was ; 
I saw its turrets in a blaze, 
Their craekling battlements all cleft. 
And the hot lead pour down like rain 
405 From off the scorch'd and blackening roof, 
Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. 

They little thought that day of pain, 
When launched, as on the lightning's flash, 
They bade me to destruction dash, 
410 That one day I should come again, 
With twice five thousand horse, to thank 

The Count for his uncourteous ride. 
They play'd me then a bitter prank, 

When, with the wild horse for my guide, 
415 They bound me to his foaming flank : 
At length I i^lay'd them one as frank — 
For time at last sets all things even — 
And if we do but watch the hour, 
There never yet was human power 
420 Which could evade, if unforgiven, 
The patient search and vigil long 
Of him who treasures up a wrong. 

XI. 

" Away, away, my steed and I, 

Upon the pinions of the wind. 
425 All human dwellings left behind ; 

We sped like meteors through the sky, 

When with its crackling sound the night 

Is chequered with the northern light. 

Tow^n — village — none were on our track, 
430 But a wild plain of far extent. 

And bounded by a forest black ; 

And, save the scarce seen battlement 



MAZEPPA 93 

On distant heights of some strong hold, 
Against the Tartars built of old, 
435 No trace of man : the year before 
A Turkish army had march'd o'er ; 
And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod. 
The verdure flies the bloody sod. 
The sky was dull, and dim, and gray, 
440 And a low breeze crept moaning by — 
I could have answer'd with a sigh — 
But fast we fled, away, away — 
And I could neither sigh nor pray ; 
And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain 
445 Upon the courser's bristling mane ; 
But, snorting still with rage and fear, 
He flew upon his far career. 
At times I almost thought, indeed, 
He must have slacken'd in his speed ; 
460 But no — my bound and slender frame 
Was nothing to his angry might, 
And merely like a spur became : 
Each motion which I made to free 
My swoln limbs from their agony 
455 Increased his fury and affright : 

I tried my voice, — 't was faint and low, 
But yet he swerved as from a blow ; 
And, starting to each accent, sprang 
As from a sudden trumpet's clang. 
460 Meantime my cords were wet with gore, 
Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er; 
Aoid in my tongue the thirst became 
A something fierier far than flame. 

XII. 

*' We near'd the wild wood — 't was so wide, 
465 1 saw no bounds on either side ; 



94 BYRON 

•T was studded with old sturdy trees, 
That bent not to the roughest breeze 
"Which howls down from Siberia's waste 
And strips the forest in its haste, — 

470 But these were few and far between. 

Set thick with shrubs more young and green, 
Luxuriant with their annual leaves, 
Ere strown by those autumnal eves 
That nip the forest's foliage dead, 

475 Discolour'd with a lifeless red, 

Which stands thereon like stiffen'd gore 
Upon the slain when battle's o'er, 
And some long winter's night hath shed 
Its frost o'er every tombless head, 

480 So cold and stark the raven's beak 
May peck unpierced each frozen cheek. 
'Twas a wild waste of underwood. 
And here and there a chestnut stood, 
The strong oak, and the hardy pine ; 

485 But far apart — and well it were. 
Or else a different lot were mine — 

The boughs gave way, and did not tear 
My limbs ; and I found strength to bear 
My wounds already scarr'd with cold — 

490 My bonds forbade to loose my hold. 
We rustled through the leaves like wind, 
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind ; 
By night I heard them on the track. 
Their troop came hard upon our back, 

495 With their long gallop which can tire 
The hound's deep hate and hunter's fire : 
Where'er we flew they foUow'd on. 
Nor left us with the morning sun ; 
Behind I saw them, scarce a rood, 



MAZEPPA 95 

500 At day-break winding through the wood, 
And through the night had heard their feet 
Their stealing, rustling step repeat. 
Oh! how I wish'd for spear or sword, 
At least to die amidst the horde, 

505 And perish — if it must be so — 
At bay, destroying many a foe. 
When first my courser's race begun, 
I wish'd the goal already won ; 
But now I doubted strength and speed. 

610 Vain doubt ! his swift and savage breed 
Had nerved him like the mountain-roe ; 
Nor faster falls the blinding snow 
Which whelms the peasant near the door 
Whose threshold he shall cross no more, 

515 Bewilder'd with the dazzling blast, 
Than through the forest-paths he past — 
Untired, untamed, and worse than wild ; 
All furious as a favour'd child 
Balk'd of its wish ; or fiercer still — 

520 A woman piqued — who has her will. 

XIII. 

" The wood was past ; 't was more than noon. 
But chill the air although in June ; 
Or it might be my veins ran cold — 
Prolong'd endurance tames the bold ; 

525 And I was then not what I seem. 
But headlong as a wintry stream. 
And wore my feelings out before 
I well could count their causes o'er. 
And what with fury, fear, and wrath, 

530 The tortures which beset my path. 
Cold, hunger, sorrow, shame, distress, 



96 BYRON 

Thus bound in nature's nakedness, 
(Sprung from a race wliose rising blood 
When stirr'd beyond its calmer mood, 

535 And trodden hard upon, is like 
The rattle-snake's in act to strike,) 
What marvel if this worn-out trunk 
Beneath its woes a moment sunk ? 
The earth gave way, the skies roll'd round, 

540 1 seem'd to sink upon the ground ; 
But err'd, for I was fastly bound. 
My heart turn'd sick, my brain grew sore, 
And throbb'd awhile, then beat no more : 
The skies spun like a mighty wheel ; 

645 1 saw the trees like drunkards reel. 
And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes» 
Which saw no farther : he who dies 
Can die no more than then I died. 
O'ertortured by that ghastly ride, 

650 1 felt the blackness come and go, • 

And strove to wake ; but could not make 
My senses climb up from below : 
I felt as on a plank at sea. 
When all the waves that dash o'er thee, 

655 At the same time upheave and whelm. 
And hurl thee towards a desert realm. 
My undulating life was as 
The fancied lights that flitting pass 
Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when 

660 Fever begins upon the brain ; 
But soon it pass'd, with little pain. 
But a confusion worse than such : 
I own that I should deem it much. 
Dying, to feel the same again ; 

565 And yet I do suppose we must 



MAZEPPA 97 

Feel far more ere we turn to dust : 
No matter ; I have bared my brow 
Full in Death's face — before — and now. 

XIV. 

" My thoughts came back ; v*rhere was I ? Cold, 
570 And numb, and giddy : pulse by pulse 
Life reassumed its lingering hold, 
And throb by throb : till grown a pang 
Which for a moment would convulse, 

My blood reflow'd though thick and chill ; 
575 My ear with uncouth noises rang, 

My heart began once more to thrill ; 
My sight return'd, though dim, alas ! 
And thicken'd, as it were, with glass. 
Methought the dash of waves was nigh : 
580 There was a gleam too of the sky. 
Studded with stars ; — it is no dream ; 
The wild horse swims the wilder stream ! 
The bright broad river's gushing tide 
Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide, 
585 And we are half-way, struggling o'er 
To yon unknown and silent shore. 
The waters broke my hollow trance. 
And with a temporary strength 

My stiffen'd limbs were rebaptized. 
590 My courser's broad breast proudly braves 
And dashes off the ascending waves. 
And onward we advance ! 

We reach the slippery shore at length, 
A haven I but little prized, 
595 For all behind was dark and drear. 
And all before was night and fear. 
How many hours of night or day 



98 BYRON 

In those suspended pangs I lay, 

I could not tell ; I scarcely knew 

600 If this were human breath I drew. 

XV. 

" With glossy skin, and dripping mane, 

And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, 
The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain 

Up the repelling bank. 
605 We gain the top : a boundless plain 
Spreads through the shadow of the night. 

And onward, onward, onward, seems, 

Like precipices in our dreams, 
To stretch beyond the sight ; 
610 And here and there a speck of white, 

Or scatter'd spot of dusky green, 
In masses broke into the light, 
As rose the moon upon my right. 

But nought distinctly seen 
615 In the dim waste would indicate 
The omen of a cottage gate ; 
No twinkling taper from afar 
Stood like a hospitable star ; 
Not even an ignis-fatuus rose 
620 To make him merry with my woes : 

That very cheat had cheer'd me then ! 
Although detected, welcome still, 
Reminding me, through every ill. 

Of the abodes of men. 

XVI. 

625 " Onward we went — but slack and slow ; 
His savage force at length o'erspent, 
The drooping courser, faint and low, 
AU feebly foaming went. 



MAZEPPA 99 

A sickly infant had had power 
660 To guide him forward in that hour ; 
But useless all to me. 
His new-born tameness nought avail'd — 
My limbs were bound ; my force had fail'd, 
Perchance, had they been free. 
635 With feeble effort still I tried 

To rend the bonds so starkly tied — 

But still it was in vain ; 
My limbs were only wrung the more, 
And soon the idle strife gave o'er, 
640 Which but prolong'd their pain. 
The dizzy race seem'd almost done, 
Although no goal was nearly won : 
Some streaks announced the coming sun — 
How slow, alas ! he came ! 
645 Methought that mist of dawning gray 
Would never dapple into day ; 
How heavily it roll'd away — 

Before the eastern flame 
Rose crimson, and deposed the stars, 
650 And call'd the radiance from their cars, 
And fiird the earth, from his deep throne, 
With lonely lustre, all his own. 

XVII. 

" Up rose the sun ; the mists were curl'd 
Back from the solitary world 

655 Which lay around — behind — before ; 
What booted it to traverse o'er 
Plain, forest, river ? Man nor brute, 
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, 
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil ; 

660 No sign of travel • — none of toil ; 



100 BYRON 

The very air was mute ; 

And not an insect's slirill small horn, 

Nor matin bird's new voice was borne 

From herb nor thicket. Many a werst, 
665 Panting as if his heart would burst, 

The weary Ijrute still stagger'd on ; 

And still we were — or seem'd — alone. 

At length, while reeling on our way, 

Methought I heard a courser neigh 
670 From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 

Is it the wind those branches stirs ? 

No, no I from out the forest ])rance 
A trampling troop ; I see them come! 

In one vast squadron they advance ! 
675 I strove to cry — my lips were dumb. 

The steeds rush on in plunging pride ; 

But where are they the reins to guide ? 

A thousand horse — and none to ride ! 

With flowing tail, and flying mane, 
680 Wide nostrils — never stretch'd by pain, 

Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, 

And feet that iron never shod, 

And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod, 

A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 
685 Like waves that follow o'er the sea, 
Came thickly thundering on, 

As if our faint approach to meet. 

The sight re-nerved my courser's feet, 

A moment staggering, feebly fleet, 
690 A moment, with a faint low neigh. 
He answer'd, and then fell ; 

With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, 

664. A icerst or verst is a Russian measure of length equiva- 
lent to about two thirds of a mile. 



MAZEPPA 



101 



And reeking limbs immoveable ; 
His first and last career is done ! 
695 On came the troop — they saw him stoop, 
They saw me strangely bound along 
His back with many a bloody thong : 
They stop — they start — they snuff the air, 
Gallop a moment here and there, 
700 Approach, retire, wheel round and round. 
Then plunging back with sudden bound. 
Headed by one black mighty steed 
Who seem'd the patriarch of his breed. 
Without a single speck or hair 
705 Of white upon his shaggy hide. 

They snort — they foam — neigh — swerve aside. 
And backward to the forest fly, 
By instinct, from a human eye. — 
They left me there to my despair, 
710 Link'd to the dead and stiffening wretch, 
Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch, 
Relieved from that unwonted weight. 
From whence I could not extricate 
Nor him nor me — and there we lay 
715 The dying on the dead ! 
I little deem'd another day 

Would see my houseless, helpless head. 

'' And there from morn till twilight bound, 
I felt the heavy hours toil round, 

720 With just enough of life to see 
My last of suns go down on me. 
In hopeless certainty of mind. 
That makes us feel at length resigned 
To that which our foreboding years 

725 Presents the worst and last of fears 



102 BYRON 

Inevitable — even a boon, 

Nor more unkind for coming soon ; 

Yet shimn'd and dreaded with such care. 

As if it only were a snare 

730 That prudence might escape : 

At times both wish'd for and implored, 
At times sought with self-pointed sword. 
Yet still a dark and hideous close 
To even intolerable woes, 

735 And welcome in no shape. 

And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure. 
They who have revell'd beyond measure 
In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, 
Die calm, or calmer oft than he 

740 Whose heritage was misery : 

For he who hath in turn run through 
All that was beautiful and new, 

Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave; 
And, save the future, (which is view'd 

745 Not quite as men are base or good, 
But as their nerves may be endued,) 

With nought perhaps to grieve : — 
The wretch still hopes his woes nuist end, 
And Death, whom he should deem his friend, 

750 Appears, to his distemper'd eyes, 
Arrived to rob him of his prize. 
The tree of his new Paradise. 
To-morrow would have given him all. 
Repaid his pangs, repair'd his fall ; 

755 To-morrow would have been the first 
Of days no more deplored or curst. 
But bright, and long, and beckoning years. 
Seen dazzling through the mist of tears. 
Guerdon of many a painful hour ; 



MAZEPPA 103 

760 To-morrow would have given him power 
To rule, to shine, to smite, to save — 
And must it dawn upon his grave ? 

XVIII. 

" The sun was sinking — still I lay 

Chain'd to the chill and stiffening steed ; 
765 1 thought to mingle there our clay ; 

And my dim eyes of death had need, 
No hope arose of being freed. 
I cast my last looks up the sky, 

And there between me and the sun 
T70 1 saw the expecting raven fly. 

Who scarce would wait till both should die 

Ere his repast begun. 
He flew, and perch'd, then flew once more, 
And each time nearer than before ; 
775 I saw his wing through twilight flit, 
And once so near me he alit 

I could have smote, but lack'd the strength ; 
But the slight motion of my hand. 
And feeble scratching of the sand, 
780 The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, 
Which scarcely could be call'd a voice. 
Together scared him off at length. — 
I know no more — my latest dream 
Is something of a lovely star 
785 Which fix'd my dull eyes from afar. 
And went and came with wandering beam, 
And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense 
Sensation of recurring sense, 

And then subsiding back to death, 
790 And tjjen again a little breath, 
A little thrilL a short suspense, 
An icy sickness curdling o'er 



104 BYRON 

My heart, and sparks that cross'd my brain — 
A gasp, a throb, a start of pain, 
796 A sigh, and nothing more. 

XIX. 

" I woke — Where was I ? — Do I see 
A human face look down on me ? 
And doth a roof above me close ? 
Do these limbs on a couch repose? 
800 Is this a chamber where I lie ? 
And is it mortal, yon bright eye 
That watches me with gentle glance? 

I closed my own again once more, 
As doubtful that the former trance 
806 Could not as yet be o'er. 

A slender girl, long-hair'd, and tall. 
Sate watching by the cottage wall : 
The sparkle of her eye I caught, 
Even with my first return of thought ; 
810 For ever and anon she threw 

A prying, ])itying glance on me 

With her black eyes so wild and free. 
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew 

No vision it could be, — 
815 But that I lived, and was released 
From adding to the vulture's feast. 
And when the Cossack maid beheld 
My heavy eyes at length unseal'd, 
She smiled — and I essay'd to speak, 
820 But faiFd — and she approach'd, and made 

With lip and finger signs that said, 
I must not strive as yet to break 
The silence, till my strength should be 
Enough to leave my accents free ; 



MAZEPPA 105 

825 And then her hand on mine she laid, 
And smooth' d the pillow for my head, 
And stole along on tiptoe tread, 

And gently oped the door, and spake 
In whispers — ne'er was voice so sweet ! 
830 Even music foUow'd her light feet ; — 

But those she calFd were not awake, 
And she went forth; but, ere she pass'd, 
Another look on me she cast. 

Another sign she made, to say, 
835 That I had naught to fear, that all 
Were near at my command or call, 

And she would not delay 
Her due return : — while she was gone, 
Methought I felt too much alone. 

XX. 

840 " She came with mother and with sire — 
What need of more ? — I will not tire 
With long recital of the rest. 
Since I became the Cossack's guest. 
They found me senseless on the plain — ■ 

845 They bore me to the nearest hut — 
They brought me into life again — 
jyje — one day o'er their realm to reign 1 
Thus the vain fool who strove to glut 
His rage, refining on my pain, 

850 Sent me forth to the wilderness. 
Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone, 
To pass the desert to a throne, — 

What mortal his own doom may guess ? — 
Let none despond, let none despair ! 

855 To-morrow the Borysthenes 

May see our coursers graze at ease 
Upon his Turkish bank, — and never 



106 BYRON 

Had I such welcome for a river 
As I shall yield when safely there. 
860 Comrades, good night ! " — The Hetman threw 
His length beneath the oak-tree shade, 
With leafy couch already made, 
A bed nor comfortless nor new 
To him who took his rest whene'er 
865 The hour arrived, no matter where : 

His eyes the hastening shimbers steep. 
And if ye marvel Charles forgot 
To thank liis tale, he wonder'd not, — 
The king had been an hour asleep. 

859. " Charles, having perceived that the day was lost, and 
that his only chance of safety was to retire with the utmost pre- 
cipitation, suffered himself to be mounted on horseback, and with 
the remains of his army fled to a ])lace called Perewolochna, 
situated in the angle formed by the junction of the Vorskla and 
the Borvsthenes. Here, accompanied by Mazeppa and a few 
hundreds of his followers, Charles swam over the latter great 
river, and proceeding over a desolate country, in danger of 
perishing with hunger, at length reached the Bog, where he was 
kindly received by the Turkish pasha. The Russian envoy at 
the Sublime Porte demanded that Mazeppa should be delivered 
up to Peter, but the old Hetman of the Cossacks escaped this 
fate by taking a, disease which hastened bis death." Barrow; 
Peter the Great. 



NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS. 

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. 

The first and second cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were 
apparently written without thought of publication — written 
rather as a sort of lyrical journal, free, open, and rapid. 

With his friend Hobhouse he had, on July 2, 1809, sailed from 
Falmouth to Lisbon with the idea of spending a considerable 
time abroad. During the next two years he visited various cities 
in Portugal, Spain, Malta, Turkej^, Greece, and other places in 
the Orient, returning to England in July of 1811. He brought 
with him a poem entitled Hints from Horace, which followed the 
satiric vein developed in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 
This poem he showed with some pride to his kinsman, Mr. Rob- 
ert Dallas, who candidly avowed that he considered it of little 
value, and was visibly disappointed that Byron had produced so 
little during the foreign sojourn. Questioned more closely, Byron 
said rather casually that he had written an account of his trav- 
els in Spenserian stanzas, but he thought the whole of little 
worth. Dallas read the two cantos, and was charmed by their 
style. He himself assumed the risk of publication, and they were 
soon brought out by Murray, the noted English publisher. All 
the world knows the story of that unprecedented success and the 
author's resulting popularity. 

In his preface to the poem Byron expressly said that Childe 
Harold was a creature of imagination, and was not to be identi- 
fied with any real person. The English public, nevertheless, im- 
mediately and persistently identified Childe Harold with Lord 
Byron; and when the poet wrote the third and fourth cantos, 
he saw the uselessness of longer keeping up the disguise, and 
accordingly spoke but more boldly in his own person. 

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, taken as a whole, is probably 
the most wonderful poem which travel has inspired. It main- 
tains its interest, not because it describes in a splendid way the 
places which the poet visited, but because it portrays so inti- 
mately and so vividly the thoughts and the emotions which these 
scenes were able to arouse in a human soul which was responsive 
to such varied thought and emotion. We are not primarily inter- 
ested in the scenes, but in the lyric reaction of those scenes. 

CANTO IV. 

The third canto of Childe Harold was published in November, 
181G. The fourth canto was begun June 26, 1817, finished in 



108 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

September, 1817, and publislied in April, 1818, with a dedication 
to his friend Hobhouse. Both of these cantos show a distinct 
advance over the emotion and workmansliip of Cantos I. and II. 
The poet had attained greater maturity, showed a firmer grasp, 
and a more striking individuality. 

ANALYSIS OF CANTO IV. 

The following analysis is taken from Dr. Uolfe's complete edi- 
tion of Ch'dde Ilarold. For the general plan and for most of the 
items Dr. Rolfe acknowledges his indebtedness to the French 
critic, Dr. Darmesteter. 

CANTO IV : Italy. 

I.-XVIII. Venice. 

XIX. -XXIV. Imagination and Memorv. 
XXV., XXVI. The Beautv of Italv even in lluius. 
XXVII-XXIX. An Italian Sunset. 
XXX.-XXXIV. Anpia and Petrarch. 
XXXV.-XXXIX. Ferrara and Tasso. 
XL., XLI. Ariosto. 

XLIL, XLIIL Apostrophe to Italy (Filicaja's Sonnet). 
XLIV.-XLVII. Sulpicius and the Downfall of Rome. 
XLVin. Florence. 
XLIX.-LIII. The Venus de' Medici. 
LIV.-LVL Santa Croce and its Dead, 
LVn.-LIX. Dante and Hoecaccio. 

LX. The Tombs of the Medici and the Graves of the Poets. 
LXI. Art and Nature. 
LXII.-LXV. Lake Thrasimene. 
LXVI.-LXVIII. Clitumnus and its Temple. 
LXIX.-LXXIL The Fall of Terni. 

LXXIII.-LXXVII. The Ai)ennines; Soracte and Horace. 
LXXVIII.-LXXXII. Rome and her Ruins. 
LXXXIII.-LXXXVL Svlla and CromweU. 
LXXXVII. The Statue of I*ompev. 
LXXXVIII. The Wolf of the Capitol. 
LXXXIX.-XCII. Ca'sar and Napoleon. 
XCIII.-XCVII. The Reaction of 1815. 
XCVIIL Tiie Coming Triumph of Freedom. 
XCIX.-CV. The Tomb of Cecilia Metella. 
CVL-CIX. The Ruins of the Palatine Hill. 
ex., CXI. The Columns of Phocas and of Trajan. 
CXII.-CXIV. The Capitol; the Forum; Rienzi. 
CXV.-CXIX. Egeria and her Fountain. 
CXX.-CXXVII. Love; its Ideals and its Realities. 
CXXVIII.-CXLV. The Coliseum; Ryron's Imprecation and 
Forgiveness of his Enemies; The Dying Gladiator. 



CHILDE HAROLD 109 

CXLVI., CXLVII. The Pantheon. 

CXLVIII.-CLI. The Legend of the Roman Daughter. 

CLII. The Mausoleum of Hadrian. 

CLIII.-CLIX. St. Peter's. 

CLX. The Laocoon. 

CLXI.-CLXIII. The Apollo Belvedere. 

CLXIV.-CLXVI. Childe Harold recalled. 

CLXVII.-CLXXII. The Death of the Princess Charlotte. 

CLXXIII.-CLXXVI. Lakes Nemi and Albano; the view 
from the Alban Mount. 

CLXXVIL-CLXXXIV. Apostrophe to the Ocean. 

CLXXXV., CLXXXVI. The End of the Song and the Poet's 
Farewell. 

1. I stood in Venice. Byron at this time was living at Ven- 
ice, going and returning frequently. His Ode on Venice, Beppo, 
Marino Faliero, and The Two Foscari also show his interest in 
this ancient and famous city. 

2. A palace and a prison on each hand. The palace is 
the Ducal Palace and the prison the State Prison. 

7. The height of lier power as a republic was attained by Ven- 
ice in the loth century, when she held various possessions in Dal- 
matia, Greece, and the Levant. Napoleon put an end to the re- 
public in 1797. Read Wordsworth's sonnet On the Extinction of 
the Venetian Republic. 

8. The lion of St. Mark is the emblem of Venice. 

10. She looks a sea Cybele Cybele, the wife of Chronos 
and the mother of the Olympian gods, was usually represented 
as enthroned between two lions. Her head is adorned with a mural 
crown. 

Is the metaphor an effective one ? Does it make you feel that 
you have Byron's conception of the appearance of Venice ? 

17. What significance lies in the word purple? 

19. Tasso's echoes are no more. " The well-known song of 
the gondoliers, of alternate stanzas from Tasso's Jerusalem, has 
died with the independence of Venice." — Hohhouse. Torquato 
Tasso (1544-95), next to Dante among the epic poets of Italy, 
published his Jerusalem Delivered in its final form in 1581. 

24. States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die. 
With this compare Matthew Arnold's expression in The Youth 
of Nature. Nature speaking says : — 

Race after race, man after man, 
Have thought tliat my secret was theirs, 
Have dream'd that I lived but for them, 
That they were my glory and joy. 
— They are dust, they are changed, they are gone ! 
I remain. 

30. despond. Supply a synonym. 

31. dogeless. AVhen Venice was conquered by Napoleon in 
1797 the office of the doge was abolished. 



110 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

33. Rialto. This is the name of a famous bridge which spans 
the (Jrand Canal. Near the bridge was the Merchants' Exchange, 
made famous by Shakespeare. 

33, 34. For Shylock, the Moor, and Pierre, see respec- 
tively The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and Tliomas Otway's 
Venice Preserved. 

35. Explain the symbolisms in the keystones of the arch. 
Paraphrase the last two lines of the stanza. 

37-46. What stanzas in Wordsworth's / wandered lonely as a 
cloud express a similar thought ? Thrase in prose the thought of 
the stanza. Illustrate by an imaginary specific example the idea 
in the latter half of the stanza. 

37. beings of the mind. Any concepts stored in the brain, — 
characters iu literature, memories of past experiences, etc. 

42. these spirits. What spirits ? 

45. void. C'ommi'nt on the rhyme. 

46-54. lu what sense is the idea here converse to that of 
stanza V. ? 

46, 47. I-'xplain these two lines. 

53. constellations. Explain the grammatical structure. 

57. are now but so. Are now but dreams. 

64. Hyrou sjiokc Italian fluently; he was less skilled in French, 
German, Latin, and (ireek. 

70. and should I leave behind, etc. And even though I 
leave England behiiul, perhnps I loved it well. Byron was some- 
what variable in his attitude toward his native country. The 
remembrance of the treatment he received at the hands of the 
British public rankled. This passage is, however, genuinely 
patriotic. 

73. Cf. what Byron wrote to Murray, June 7, 1819 : " I trust 
they won't think of ' picking and bringing me home to Clod or 
Blunderbuss Hall.' I am sure my bones would not rest in an 
English grave, or my clay mix witli the earth of that country. I 
believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could 
I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to con- 
vey my carcass back to your soil. I would not even feed your 
worms, if I could help it." — Quoted by Rolfe. 

Tennyson in In Memoriam (XVIII.) found comfort in thinking 
of the body of Arthur Hallam being laid in English soil: 

'T is well ; 't is something; we may stand 

Where he in English earth is laid, 

And from his ashes may be made 
The violet of his native land. 

78. fond. This word is used in its Elizabethan sense oi foolish. 

82. temple. What abbey is this ? 

85. Spartan's epitaph. This, Ilobhouse tells us, was the 
answer made by the mother of Brasidas, the Lacedaemonian gen- 
eral, to those who praised the memory of her son. 



CHILDE HAROLD 111 

87. nor need. Supply the ellipsis. This line is Byronic bra- 
vado. 

91. spouseless Adriatic, etc. In former times the Doge 
annually went out in his barge Buoentaur, and ceremoniously 
threw a ring into the sea in token of the city's maritime su- 
premacy. 

95. St. Mark. St. Mark is the patron saint of Venice, and 
the lion is his emblem. Napoleon ordered this lion taken from 
its pedestal in the Piazzetta, and sent it to Paris, but it was later 
restored. 

97, 98. The proud Place was in front of the Cathedral. 
Here Emperor Frederic Barbarossa (called the Suabian in stanza 
XII.) in 1177 opposed the papacy, but was soon forced to yield 
to Pope Alexander III. 

100. Austrian. Napoleon conquered Venice in 1805; in 1814 
it was restored to Austria, under whose dominion it remained 
until 1866. 

106. lauwine. A German word meaning avalanche. 

107. Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! " The reader 
will recollect the exclamation of the Highlander, ' O, for one 
hour of Dundee!' Henry Dandolo, when elected Doge in 1192, 
was eighty-five years of age. When he commanded the Vene- 
tians at the taking of Constantinople, he was consequently ninety- 
seven years of age." — Hobhouse. 

109. steeds of brass. These are above the portal of the 
church of St. Mark. 

111. The Venetians in 1379 were overcome by the Genoese 
and the prince of Padua. In surrendering they sent an embassy 
to the conquerors in which they promised to agree to any terms 
which allowed them their independence. The Genoese, through 
their commander, Peter Doria, sent back the answer, "On God's 
faith, gentlemen of Venice, ye shall have no peace . . . until we 
have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, that 
are upon the porch of your evangelist St. Mark." 

113. thirteen hundred years of freedom. Venice was 
founded in 452. As Byron wrote this in 1817, the exact number 
of years tliat had elapsed since the founding was thirteen hun- 
dred sixty -five. Cf . The Ode to Venice — 

Thirteen hundred years 
Of wealth and glory turned to dust. 

114-117. Sinks, like a sea-weed. Rolfe and other critics 
see in this an allusion to the gradual subsidence of Venetian 
buildings. The notes written by Hobhouse, and published by 
Byron with the poem, suggest rather the deterioration of patri- 
otic spirit. This certainly is more in keeping with the temper- 
ament of Byron. 

118. a new Tyre. The old Tyre, as described by the pro- 
phet Ezekiel, was a Phenician city of great magnificence and 



112 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

splendor. Like Venice, it was built upon islands. Cf. Ezekiel, 
chapters xxvi-xxviii. Cf. also Isaiah xxiii : 8. 

119. by-'word. Nickname. 

120. The ' Planter of the Lion.' The Lion of St. Mark, the 
standard of the Republic of Venice. 

123. bulwark. Explain the grammatical construction. 
Ottomite= Ottoman Turks. 

124. Troy's rival, Candia. Rival in point of time spent in 
itvS defence. The Trojans defended their city ten years; the 
Venetians defended Candia (on the coast of Crete) for twenty- 
four years. 

125. Lepanto's fight. In the Gulf of Lepanto the Venetians 
and their allies defeated the Turks in a great naval battle in 
1571. 

127-135. Note Byron's splendid choice of details in this 
stanza. What is the total effect of these ? 
129. pile. Ducal Palace. 

136. "When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse. In 414 B.C. 
the Athenians under Nicia.s laid siege to ISyracuse, but were in 
413 B. c. forced to yield. Some of the Athenian captives are said 
by Plutarch to have obtained their freedom by reciting passages 
from Euripides. Browning makes use of this legend in his Ba- 
laustioii's Adventure. Balaustion, a young girl of Rhodes, was one 
of a group of Athenian sym})athizers wlio were captured by the 
Syracusans. These captors, finding that Balaustion was willing 
to recite the Alcestis of Euripides on condition that she and her 
friends be released, listened iu charmed attention to her story. 
" All this came," said Balaustion, as she retold her adventure, 
" from the 

glory of the golden verse, 
And passion of the picture, and that fine 
Frank outgusli of the human gratitude 
Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse — 
Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps 
Away from you, friends, while I told my tola, 
— It all came of this play." 

140-145. What creates the vividness of these lines? Is it due 
to the choice of verbs ? Has the use of the present tense any 
vivifying effect ? 

151-153. Albion. England. Rolf e quotes the description of 
England in Richard IL, II. 1. 46. 

This precious stone set in the silver sea. 
Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
Against the envy of less happier lands. 

Of course it is not necessary to assume that Byron was think- 
ing of Shakespeare's passage. 

158. Otway's Venice Preserved, Mrs. Radcliffe's The Mysteries 
of Udolpho, Schiller's Ghost-seer (Der Geisterseher), and Shake- 
speare's The Merchant of Venice are here referred to. 



CHILDE HAROLD 113 

160. Interpret the thus. 

161. Supply the ellipsis. 

163-171. Byron is by no means the only writer in English 
•who has been influenced by Venice. Can you cite others ? 
172. But. Can you justify Byron's use of hut here ? 

tannen. German word for Jir trees. " Tannen is the 
plural of tanne, a species of fir peculiar to the Alps, which only 
thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its 
nourishment can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater 
height than any other mountain tree." — Byron. 

Stanzas XX.-XXV. Frame in five single sentences the 
thought in each of these five stanzas. With what idea or ideas 
expressed in these stanzas do you disagree ? Do you know of 
other writers who have expressed similar thoughts ? 
189. What is the antecedent of it ? 

194. "weave their "web again. Recommence their work. 
199-201. Illustrate the thought of this stanza by a specific 
example — real or imaginary. E. H. Coleridge calls attention 
here to Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology. 

Just when we are safest, there 's a sunset-touch, 
A fancy from a flower-ball, some one's death, 
A chorus-ending from l<-uripides, — 
Add that 's enough for fifty hopes and fears 
To rap and knock and enter in our soul. 

216. Too many! — yet how few! Why too many? Why 

how few? 

2i7ff. Note how Byron here brings the reader back from 
these digressive stanzas on abstract themes to the concrete real- 
ities in Rome. The poet's thoughts now turn from Venice to 
other Italian cities. 

218. Why does Byron speak of himself as a ruin ? 

220-224. Does Byron's praise of Italy here seem to you 
extravagant, or do facts justify it? 

226. commonwealth of kings. A republic of kingly citi- 
zens. 

230-234. Note the reserve power felt in these lines. The 
poet selects for eulogy the meaner things in Italy. What praise 
could he not bestow upon the grander ? 

Stanzas XXVII.-XXX. These three stanzas are full of 
what we term sensory images, — i. e., images that appeal to such 
senses as sight, hearing, feeling, taste, and smell. The student 
will note that here the appeal is principally to the eye; color, 
form, and movement are most prominent in the reader's concep- 
tion. Try to picture all this by studying carefully each mentioned 
detail and formulating it all in a successive chain of images. 
Naturally we cannot reconstruct the particular image Byron had 
in mind, but we can call up pictures which will generate similar 
emotions. Unless we can do this we are unable to read poetry. 
What images, other than sight images, are here conceived? 



114 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

235. Byron conceives himself as stationed on the mainland 
opposite Venice, where the river Brenta flows into the Gulf of 
Venice. 

238. blue Friuli's mountains. The mountains meant are 
"the Julian Alps, which form an arc from behind Trieste to the 
neighbourhood of Verona; and the word must be taken in its 
widest acceptation, for the mountains intended are evidently 
those to the west of Venice, while Friuli itself (the ancient Fo- 
rum Julii) is to the north-east of that city." 'Jhe same chain, or 
higher summits beyond, are called below "the far Kluetian hill," 
that is, the Tyroh-se lieights. — Tozcr. 

243. an island of the blest. " The above description may 
seem fantastical or exaggerated to those who have never seen 
an Oriental or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly 
suflicifnt delineation of an August evening as contemplated in 
one of many rides along the bank of the Brenta, near La Mira." 
— Jij/ron. 

Stanza XXIX. In the suggestion of images, what power 
does literature have that is denied to i)ainting and to sculpture? 
Illustrate from this stanza. Students should consult Lessing's 
Laocoim. 

254. hues. What case? 

259. Dies like the dolphin. Is Byron's description true to 
science? Wliat is your aiithority? 

Stanza XXX. From here t(» stanza XLVII. Byron's ideas are 
largelv aroused by Italian literature, and the life-story of some 
of hrr ])oets. 

262, Arqua. Consult an atlas or a gazetteer. 

reared in air. The tomb of Fetrarcli is supported on 
red marble pilhirs. 

264. Laura's lover. Petrarch. Consult the encyclopedia. 

267-269. What lanirii.iixo did he raise? What land reclaim? 
Who were his harhnnr /nes ? 

269. "Watering the tree. In his ])oetry Petrarch makes fre- 
quent mention of the laurel. lie plays upon the resemblance be- 
tween this and the Laura who inspired his lyrics. 

271 fif. Tozer appositely quotes Milton's Epitaph on Shake- 
speare. 

Wliat noeds my Shakpspoare for his honom-'d bones 
The labour of an agf in iiile<l stones ? 
Or tliat liis liallow'd relirs shonld be hid 
Under a star-y pointing pyramid ? 

What great men do you know about whose monuments are 
plain and :^imple ? For Bvron's view consult the note on line 478. 

Stanzas XXXII-XXXV. Do you agree with Byron in his 
notion that solitude, because it lias no flatterers, better enables 
an individual to work out his own particidar soul-problems ? Or 
is it better to talk them over with those who are wiser than we ? 
Or will varying conditions dictate a choice between these two 



CHILDE HAROLD 115 

alternatives ? Perhaps you can suggest other and better methods. 
How does literature sometimes offer us aid ? Do you agree with 
Byron's note in which he says, " The struggle is full as likely to 
be with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the 
wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour. And our unsullied 
John Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete soli- 
tude." 

280-288. Can you cite other examples of great writers who 
lived in quiet hamlets ? 

282. Phrase this line in simpler language. 

290. where-by. On the banks of which. 

293. Idlesse. How do you account for this form ? 

293. Hath its morality. Meaning ? 

298-306. Byron here suggests that some individuals are so 
unfortimate as to believe themselves predestined to a doom 
which will not pass away. These individuals lack the element 
that has distinguished the best and noblest poetry of such writers 
as Tennyson and Browning — our greatest modern teachers. 

307. Byron, on his way to Florence, stopped at Ferrara, 
which in the loth and 16th centuries was a noted center of art 
and literature. Browning has immortalized it under the title 
of his poem il/y Last Duchess. 

308. Whose symmetry -was not for solitude. Meaning ? 
311. Este : The name of the house which long ruled Ferrara. 

The glories of the house were celebrated in Tasso's Jerusalem 
Delivered. 

314. Alfonso I., who belonged to the house of Este, was a 
patron of poets — particularly of Ariosto. 

Alfonso II. for a time was Tasso's patron. It is popularly be- 
lieved that this duke, because of Tasso's political intrigues, and 
because of his daring to love the duke's sister, had the poet con- 
fined as a lunatic in a narrow cell. (Cf. Byron's Lament of Tasso 
and Goethe's Torquato Tasso). But later authorities assert that 
this confinement was due to the genuine insanity of the poet, and 
Byron's attack here may not be quite justifiable. 

332, 333. For the thought in these last two lines cf. Shake- 
speare's King Lear, IV. vi. 163 ff. 

a dog 's obey'd in office. . . . 

The usurer hangs the cozener. 
Through tatter'd clothes great vices do appear ; 
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; 
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it. 

335. beasts that perish. Ps. xlix: 20. 

339. the Cruscan quire. " The Accademia della Crusca, 
established at Florence in 1582, with the object of purifying the 
national language. It censured Tasso's Jerusalem. Quire is now 
commonly spelled choir.^^ — Rofe. 



116 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

340. Boileau *'Tlie celebrated Frencli critic, who complained 
that the taste of his time preferred the tinsel of Tasso to the 
gold of Viroil." — Rolfe. 

342. monotony in -wire. Boileau in France was as devoted 
to the heroic couplet as was Pope in England. Lowell has aptly 
termed this measure the rockin (/-horse meter. 

354. Bards of Hell and Chivalry. Dante wrote of hell 
(the Inferno),Ti\\i\ Ariosto wrote of chivalry. 

355.' Tuscan father. Dante. 

356, 357. the Florentine, The southern Scott. Ariosto. 
Scott and Hyron were admirers of each other's work. Scott 
abandoned narrative poetry because he felt that Byron was 
excelling him. 

361. The lightning, etc. *' Before the remains of Tasso were 
removed from the Benedictine church to the library of Ferrara, 
his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck by lightning, 
and a crown of laurels melted away." — Ilohhouse. 

364. true laurel-'wreath. What is the true laurel-wreath? 

368. Among the Romans it was a superstition that the light- 
ning sanctified the objects it struck. Because of this belief the 
Curtian lake and the Kuminal hg-tree in the P^orum were held 
sacred. 

370-378. Byron tells us that this stanza and the next are a 
free translation of Filicaja's famous sonnet. 

377. robbers. Whom did Byron probably have in mind ? 

387-395. In his celebrated letter to Cicero Servius Sulpicius 
tries to console the great orator for the death of Cicero's daugh- 
ter Tiillia. He contrasts the insignificance of an individual death 
with the tragic significance of the downfall of a state. Parts of 
the letter describe a route by sea and land which Byron often 
traced. "On my return from Asia," writes Byron, " as I was 
sailing from iEgina towards Megara, 1 began to contemj)late 
the j)rospects of the countries around me: /Egina was behind, 
Megara before me; Pineus on the right, Corinth on the left; all 
which towns once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and 
buried in their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think 
presently within myself : Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and 
vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, 
whose life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many noble 
cities lie here exposed before me in one view." 

399. Note the cacophony (disagreeable sound) in this line. 
Byron, in his hurry, is sometimes careless of his style and syntax. 

404. surviving page. What page ? 

409. And I in desolation. Supply the ellipsis. 

415-423. Byron's tribute to Italy is comprehensive; Italy has 
been the mother of arts, war, and religion. Byron might also have 
mentioned law — perhaps the most significant of Roman contri- 
butions to present civilization. 



CHILDE HAROLD 117 

. 422-423. Has the prophecy of these lines been fulfilled ? 

425. Etrurian Athens. Florence. Tuscany, of which Flor- 
ence, on the Arno, is the capital, was formerly called Etruria. 
Florence is the modern home of art, as Athens was the ancient 

431. modern Luxury. " The refined luxury of modern days, 
as distinguished from the barbarous splendor of the Middle 
Ages, was first seen at Florence, especially at the court of the 
Medici: it was the result of the great wealth of Florentme 
Traders." — Tozer. 

432. buried Learning. Florence was one ot the centers ot 
the Renaissance movement. 

433 The Goddess alluded to is the statue of Venus de 
Medici in the Tribute of the Uffizi Gallery. The method of 
description which Byron here adopts is description by effect. You 
will note that he says almost nothing about the objective char- 
acteristics of the statue; the sense of beauty is, however, power- 
fully revealed to the reader through the poet's magnificent enthu- 
siasm. This sort of reaction is characteristic of the entire poem. 
For a similar efPect produced by other Florentine objects, read 
Henry James's The Madonna of the Future. 

445. Chained to the chariot. To what ancient Roman cus- 
tom does Bvron here allude ? m , • i j • 

448. paltry jargon of the marble mart. Technical descrip- 
tions of art treasures used by those dealers who are deluding 

purchasers. . x^ . , i • i j ^i 

450. The Dardan Shepherd is Pans, who decided the con- 
test of beauty between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite (Venus). 

452. more deeply blest. Because Anchises was privileged 
to marrv Aphrodite (Venus). 

454. Lord of "War. Who is meant ? 

458. lava combines the two ideas suggested in melting and 
burning. The image is certainly not of Byron's happiest concep- 

460-468. Phrase in a single sentence the thought of this 
stanza. 

470. ape. Copier. . 

478 Santa Crooe. "The church of Santa Croce contains 
much illustrious nothing. The tombs of Machiavelli, Michael 
Ano-elo. Galileo, and Alfieri, make it the Westminster Abbey ot 
Itafy. i did not admire any of these tombs — beyond their con- 
tents. . . . What is necessary but a bust and name (* and per- 
haps a date. ... All your allegory and eulogy is infernal." — 
Byron's Letters, 1817. For what is each of these four great men 
especially noted ? i ., .. n 

487. like the elements. The ancients believed that all crea- 
tion was composed of the four elements, earth, air, fire, and 
water. 



118 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

495. Canova, the famous Italian sculptor, died in 1822, two 
years before Byron's death. 

496, 497. For what are Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio (the 
bard of prose) especially noted ? 

505. Dante sleeps afar. Dante is buried in Ravenna, near 
the " upbraiding shore " of the Adriatic. 

506. Scipio Africanus the Elder is supposed to be buried near 
the sea at Liturnum in Campania. He gave orders that he must 
not be buried at Rome, but at Liturnum, where he had spent 
several years of voluntary exile. Upon his tomb, some histories 
assert, there was inscribed in Latin, " Ungrateful country, you 
shall not have my ashes." 

507. Thy factions. This alludes to the long strife between 
the Guelf and the Ghibellinc parties. One of the results of this 
strife was the banishment of Dante. 

510, 511. and the crown, etc. Byron's diction here is 
careless; he evidently means that upon a far and foreign soil 
(France) Petrareli had done the work which finally won for him 
the laurel crown at Rome — a crown which he wore with rare 
dignity. His grave at Arqna was riHed by Florentine robbers. 

514. to his parent earth. Boccaccio was buried at his birth- 
place, Certaldo (soutli-westof Florence). Later his remains were 
ejected from the sacred precincts by those whom Byron calls 
" hyfcna bigots." 

517. Tuscan's siren tongue. The Italian is the most melli- 
fluous of languages. 

522. "whom. Boccaccio, whom the monks hated. 

525. the Caesar's pageant. Because Brutus was one of the 
conspirators against .Julius Csesar, his bust was not carried in 
the funeral procession of Tiberius C'jesar. Or, ])erhaps, as some 
authorities say, the funeral procession alluded to is that of Junia, 
wife of Cassius, and sister of P)rutus. 

528. Fortress of falling empire. During the barbarian in- 
vasions Ravenna was one of the more strongly fortified places of 
the Empire. 

532. Byron is here referring to the expensive tombs of the 
Medici in the church of San l^orenzo at Florence. Notice the 
effect of this on the poet as he expresses it in a letter to Murray; 
** I also went to the Medici chapel, — fine frippery in great slabs 
of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and for- 
gotten carcasses." He was so nmch disgusted with the ostenta- 
tious magnificence of the chapel that he did not notice Michael 
Angelo's celebrated statties on the tombs. 

542. Arno's dome of Art. Mr. E. H. Coleridge thinks this 
refers to the Duomo or Cathedral at Florence. Other editors 
think the poet is referring to the Uffizi Gallery. 

543. rainboTv sister. Explain. 

545-549. Cf. the thought here with that expressed in one of 



CHILDE HAROLD 119 

Byron's letters to Murray: "I never yet saw the picture or the 
statue v/^hich came a league within my conception orexpectatfon; 
but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views 
. . . [that] went far beyond it." 

551. Thrasimene's lake. Here Hannibal, through his artful 
wiles, was able to entrap and defeat the Roman army. 

554-559. Study the method by which Byron here secures his 
effect of vividness. Is he apt in his selection of details ? of 
words ? Illustrate. 

563. An earthquake reeled unheededly away. Livy is 
Byron's authority; he says that the carnage here was so intense 
that the fighters were unconscious of the great earthquake then 
occurring. 

577. Note that Byron here effects his transition by means of 
contrast. 

585. unwilling waters. Why unwilling? 

586. But thou, Clitumnus. " No book of travels has omitted 
to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno 
and Spoleto; and no sight, or scenery, even in Italy, is more 
worthy a description." — Byron. 

590. milk-white steer. Byron follows Virgil. Cf. GeorgicSj 
ii. 146, " Hinc, albi, Clitumne, greges." Cf. also Macaulay's 
Horatius : — 

Unwatched along Clitumnus 
Qrazes the milk-white steer. 

Pliny tells us that the waters of certain rivers were supposed 
to make the cattle which drank from them white. 

602. chance. Perchance. 

scattered. Spread out. 

604-612. This stanza suggests an attitude toward nature fre- 
quent in Byron; he seems to look on nature as a retreat from 
the weariness of the world, rather than as an active agency in 
healing power. 

612. disgust. E. H. Coleridge defines the particular meaning 
here as tastelessness. 

613-621. Note here the various sensory images. Which ones 
appeal to the eye ? which to the ear ? Recreate each separate 
image. 

614. The name of the cataract is Terni. It is formed by the 
Velino River. 

620. Phlegethon. The name of one of the four rivers in 
Hades. Tozer calls attention to the fine way in which the idea of 
spirits in torment is here carried out. 

629. Crushing the cliffs, etc. No poet has a keener eye for 
the powerful, the tempestuous, in nature. Note this characteris- 
tic in the following stanza, and throughout the poem. 

640-648. Make a study of the similes in this stanza. 

642. Iris. Meaning? 



120 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

653. lau^vine. Avalanches. Byron's German is faulty, the 
correct plural being Lauwinen. 

654. Jungfrau. Literally, virgin mountain. This peak of the 
Alps, which Byron here speaks of as never-trodden, had a pecul- 
iar fascination for the poet. He makes it the scene of much of 
the action of Manfred. 

657. Chimari. The Acroceraunian Mountains, now called the 
Chiniari, take their present name from the town which lies near. 

658. Acroceraunian is Greek iov thunder-hills above, — lit- 
erally, /)ea^^s• struck by lightning or thunder. Cf. Shelley's Are- 
thusa : — 

Arethusa arose 

From lier couch of snows 

In the Acroceraunian ujountains. 

659. Supply the ellipsis. 

662. -with a Trojan's eye. From the plain of Troy. 

663. Athos, Olympus, JEtna, Atlas. Consult an atlas or 
a gazetteer. 

665. Soracte's height. " Tiiis niountain (now known as San 
Oreste), to the north of Home, though only 'J2G0 feet high, is a 
conspicuous object in tiie view from many points in the city, on 
account of its isolated position. Its broken contour, as it rises 
'from out the })lain ' (we have in mind particularly the view 
from San Pietro di Montorio — the ancient Janiculum), at once 
recalls the poet's comparison to a breaking wave. Virgil refers 
to Soracte in the /En. vi. 090 : ' Hi Soraetis habent arces; ' and 
id. xi. 785 : * Summe deum, sancti custos Soraetis Apollo; ' and 
Horace, in Od. i. 9 : ' Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte.' 
It is this last passage that Byron had in mind in saying that the 
height is ' not now in snow.' The temple of Apollo on the sum- 
mit, to which Virgil alludes, is replaced by the modern church 
of San Silvestro." — Rnlfe. 

666. lyric Roman. Horace. See note above. 

668, 669. Heaves like a long-swept -wave, etc. Cf. this 

with Matthew Arnold's notable simile in Sohrah and Rusium: — 

For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 
Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, 
Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. 
And whether it will heave us up to laud, 
Or whether it will roll us out to sea. 
Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 
We know not, and no search will make us know; 
Only the event will teach us in its hour. 

672. I abhorred, etc. Byron's temperament did not easily 
accord with the routine of classical studies as pursued at Harrow 
and at Cambridge. In a letter to Moore he expresses his opinion 
of Virgil: " I shall go to Bologna by Ferrara, instead of Man- 
tua; because I would rather see tlie cell where they caged Tasso 
. . . than his own MSS. at Modena, or the Mantuan birthplace 
of that harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer whose cursed 



CHILDE HAROLD 



121 



hexameters were drilled into me at Harrow. Byron s own note 
follows: "I wish to express that we become tired of the task 
before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote 
before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, 
and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed 
bv the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither teel 
nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an 
acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek to relish or 
to reason upon In some parts of the Continent young per- 
sons are taught from more common authors, and do not read 
the best classics till their maturity." • . ti„^ 

690 nor Bard prescribe his art. The reference is to Hor- 
ace's ^rs Poetica in which the poet lays down his conception of 
the laws of poetry. Pope's Essay on Criticism was influenced by 
Horace's Ars Poetica. , . i u J¥^„ 

695 must turn to thee. What consolation does Rome offer 
to those who are destitute of love and sympathy ? 

703. Niobe of nations. What comparison is there between 
Niobe and Rome ? Consult a classical dictionary. 

707. Scipios' tomb. This tomb, discovered near the Appiaa 
Way in 1780, was soon rifled of its bones. , . , , . , i 

715. steep. The road up the Capitoline Hill which triumphal 

proc^essions^ but feel our way to err. Groping our way, we 
make mistakes. 

734. TuUy's. Cicero's. 

735, 736. these shall be, etc. In the pages of these, future 

atres will read Rome's story. . „ ^ o n x • „ m,^ 

740-744 Triumphant Sylla. Sulla (or Sylla) was given the 
name Felix to characterize his continued good luck He set out 
for the Mithridatic war 87 b. c. before he had gained the results 
of the victory over Marius. • ^ i n- ^„^^„ ;„ 

745 Annihilated senates. Sulla was appointed Dictator m 
81 B. c. After this the Senate was completely m his power 

746 *hou didst lay down, etc. Sulla gave up his dicta- 
torial wreath" in 79 B.C., and withdrew into private lite. 

752 Eternal. Cf. Hall Caine's novel The Eternal City. 
758. Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament and brought 

Charles I. to the block. , r^ n „„:„^^ 

763 His fate. " On the 3d of September Cromwell gained 
the victory of Dunbar [1G50] ; a year afterwards l^e obtained 
'his crowning mercy 'of Worcester [1651]; and a few years 
after [1G58], on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the 
most fortunate for him, died." — 5yron. ^ • . „f :„ 

775. dread statue. The statue of Porapey is still existent m 
the Spada Palace at Rome. Tradition has long accepted Uiis as 
the one at whose feet C^sar fell. Cf . Shakespeare's Julius CcBsar, 
III. ii. 192-193. 



122 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

781. Nemesis. Byron here asks the god of vengeance if 
Caesar's death by Brutus came as a retribution for Pompey's 
death by C«sar. 

784. thunder-stricken nurse of Rome. The bronze " Wolf 
of the Capitol " in the Palace of the Conservators is thought 
to be the one alluded to by Cicero in his third oration against 
Catiline. 

799. supremacy. What is the grammatical construction ? 

800. one vain man. Napoleon. Byron has fully character- 
ized Napoleon in the following stanzas taken from Canto III. of 
Childe Harold. 

XXXVl. 

There > sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, 
Whose spirit, antithetically mixed, 
One niouient of the uuKhtiest, and af^ain 
On little objects with like firmness fixed, 
Extreme in all tilings ! hadst thou been betwixt, 
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been. 
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st 
Even now to reassume the imjwrial mien 
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene ! 

XXXVII. 

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou ! 
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name 
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now 
Tliat thou art nothing, save the jeat of Fame, 
Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became 
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert 
A god unto thyself; nor less the same 
To the astounded kingdoms all inert, 
Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert. 

XXXVIU. 

O, more or less tlian man — in high or low, 
Battling with nations, fiying from the field ; 
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now 
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; 
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, 
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor. 
However deeply in men's spirits skilled, 
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war. 
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star ! 

XXXIX. 

Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide 
With that untaught innate philosophy, 
Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, 
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. 
When the wliole host of hatred stood hard by, 
To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled 
With a sedate and all-enduring eye ; — 
When Fortime fled her spoiled and favorite child, 
He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled. 

XL. 

Sager than in thy fortunes ; for in them 
Ambition steeled thee on too far to show 
That just habitual scorn which could contemn 
Men and their thoughts ; 't was wise to feel, not bo 
1 Waterloo. 



CHILDE HAROLD 123 

To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, 
And spurn the instruments thou wert to use 
Till they were turned unto thine overthrow : 
'T is but a worthless world to win or lose; 
So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. 

XLI. 

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, 
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone. 
Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock ; 
But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, 
Their admiration thy best weapon shone : 
The part of Philip's son was thine, not then — 
Unless aside thy purple had been thrown — 
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men ; 
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. 

801. vanquished by himself. Napoleon was at this time 
an exile on St. Helena. 

803. bastard Caesar. An inferior Caesar. 

809, 810. Alcides with the distaff. An allusion to Hercules 
who, dressed in maiden's garb, spun wool for Omphale, queen 
of Lydia. Caesar was fascinated by Cleopatra. 

811. And came — and saw — and conquered ! The trans- 
lation of Cfesar's famous sentence — veiii, vidi, vici — in which 
he describes the result of his campaign against Pharnaces II., 
King of Pontus. 

812. his eagles. Here symbolically used for French soldiery, 
which were trained to " flee " toward, not away from, the enemy. 

828. Cf. Gen. ix: 13. 

Stanzas XCIII., XCIV. Try to pnt the thought of these two 
stanzas into one compact sentence. Do you agree with Byron? 
Can you think of any literary selection that voices a similar 
thought? Is Byron most interesting — or least so — when he 
gives expression to such abstract views of life? Or do you like 
better the objective descriptions in his travels? 

850-854. The yoke that is upon us, etc. The reference is 
to the increased absolutism in government which followed the 
fall of Napoleon. 

853. apes of him. The antecedent of him is Napoleon. 

859. Pallas. Consult a classical dictionary. The comparison 
of America's springing to full liberty as Pallas sprang to full 
maturity is a striking simile. 

863. Washington. Cf. Byron's Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte 
for another reference to Washington. 

866. The Saturnalia was a lioman festival marked by unre- 
strained license. 

871. the base pageant. "By the 'base pageant' Byron refers 
to the Congress of Vienna (September, 1815); the Holy Alliance 
(September 26) into which the Duke of Wellington would not 
enter; and the Second Treaty of Paris, November 20, 1815." — 
E. H. Coleridge. 

Stanza XCVIII. Get clearly in mind each separate figure 



124 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

which Byron uses in his analysis of freedom. Do you find his 
rapid formation of figures producing a clarifying or a confusing 
effect ? 

881. in the bosom of the North. Byron is probably think- 
ing of P^ngland. 

883. stern round tower. This tower — the tomb of Csecilia 
Metella — is situated on the Appian Way, two miles from Rome. 
It is sixty-five feet in diameter. 

904. Cornelia. We remember her for her famous character- 
ization of her sons, the Gracchi — "These are my jewels." 

905. Egypt's graceful queen. Cleopatra. 

906. it. What is the antecedent? 

Stanza CIII. The -wealthiest Roman's wife. There has 
been abinidant conjecture about the personality of Caecilia Me- 
tella, but we know oidy that she was the wife of Crassus. 

969. Hath but one page. History simj)ly repeats itself. 

976. in this span. Hero in the narrow territory about the 
Palatine Hill once reigned the greatest of civilizations, but now 
the foundation can scarcely be traced. 

983. nameless column. Anticpiarians have discovered that 
this column w^as erected in honor of the Emperor Fhocas, A. D. 
G08. 

989. apostolic statues. A statue of St. Peter is now upon 
the column of Trajan and a statue of St. Paul upon the column 
of Aurelius. 

990. w^hose ashes slept sublime, Buried in air. There was 
a legend that Trajan's ashes were placed in a gilded globe which 
originally surmounted tlie column of Trajan. When Sixtus V. 
opened this globe, he foiuul it empty. 

997. Alexander, under the infiueuce of wine, killed his friend 
Clitus. 

999. still. Even to thin ar/e rather than nevertheless. 

1000. rock of Triumph. This marked the spot on the Cap- 
itoline Hill where the triumphal procession ended. 

1002. Tarpeian. From here criminals were thrown. 

1022. Rienzi, after leading a successful insurrection against 
the nobles, was proclain)ed Trilxme in 1347. Cf. Bulwer-Lyttou's 
Rienzi, The Last of the Tribunes, and Wagner's opera. 

1026. Numa was also a lawgiver to the Romans. 

1027. Egeria. She was " the nymph who counselled Numa, 
the ancient lawgiver, who was fabled to have been her lover. 
Her fountain and grotto were placed beyond the Sebastian gate 
in Byron's day. They are now thought to be near the Metronian 
gate." — Carpenter. 

1031. nympholepsy. Mental disorder caused by nymphs. 

1036. thy fountain. The so-called "Grotto of Egeria" is 
near the Appian Way, about a mile and a half from Rome. The 
" grotto " is " a nymphseum, originally covered with marble, the 



CHILDE HAROLD 125 

shrine of the brook Almo (which now flows past it in an artificial 
channel) and erected at a somewhat late period. A niche in the 
posterior wall contains the mutilated statue of the river-god, 
standing on corbels, from which the water used to flow." — Bae- 
deker. 

1047. bills. The exigency of the rhyme, rather than high 
poetic art, dictates this choice. Do you find other similar cases 
in the poem ? 

1070, 1071. The dull satiety, etc. This is a characteristio 
attitude in Byron. Find other examples. 

1105. Reaping the -whirl-wind. Cf. Hosea viii : 7. " For 
they have sow^n the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." 

1112. doubly curst. Why doubly? 

Stanza CXXV. In the discussion here and in the succeeding 
stanzas Byron is doubtless thinking of his own infelicitous mar- 
riage with Miss Milbanke. 

Stanza CXXVI. Seldom does Byron express a more hope- 
less mood than in this stanza. Compare it with the whole of 
Manfred. 

1129. upas . . . tree. Study this metaphor carefully. Express 
the idea, divorced from the figure. 

1140. cabined, cribbed, confined. Cf. Machethy III. iv. 24. 

But now I 'm cabin'd, cribb'd, confiu'd, bound in 
To saucy doubts and fears. 

1143. couch. This is a technical term in surgery; to couch a 
cataract means to treat it by pushing down the opaque lens 
■with a needle. 

1147. Coliseum. The first, second, and third stories of the 
Flavian amphitheater were, Mr. E. H. Coleridge tells us, built 
upon arches. Between the arches, eighty to each story, stood 
three-quarter columns. Byron in Manfred, Act III. sc. iv. lines 
8-13, has another description of the Coliseum by night. 

Stanza CXXX. In this and the following stanzas Byron makes 
his appeal to Time to give to him retributive justice. He feels 
that he has been deeply wronged and unfairly condemned by the 
British public. 

Does this impress you as being too personal; or do you like it 
all the more for its strong personal display of emotion? 

1171. this -wreck. The Coliseum. 

1182. Look this up in a classical dictionary; or, better still, 
read The Libation Pourers and the Eumenides by ^schylus. 

1194. thou. Nemesis. Byron here seems intent on asserting 
that for the faults for which he had been condemned he was not 
in reality to blame, and that in time he would be cleared of 
blame. 

1196. The dash at the end of the line here indicates that the 
poet stops short of mentioning any name — his sister's, most 
likely. 



126 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

1200. decline. "What part of speech? 

Stanza CXXXV. What do you think of this self-praise? 

1221. Janus glance. Janus was the name applied to the 
Roman god who looked in both directions. Cf. our word January. 

1234. The seal is set. My curse is ended. 

dread poiver. " Sentiment of antiquity." — Tozer. 

1243. buzz of eager nations. In the Coliseum crowd of 
80,000 or more tl)ere would he many nationalities present. 

1247. genial. Here used ironically. 

Stanza CXL. Gladiator. The famous statue of The Dying 
Gladiator is now known to represent a dying Gaul, Byron's de- 
scriptive powers are seldom more effectively used than in this 
stanza. Study the description in an effort to analyze the elements 
which contribute to the vividness. 

1274. millions' blame or praise, etc. " When one gladiator 
wounded another, he shouted, ' He has it,' * Hoc habet,' or 
* Habet.' The wounded combatant dropped his weapon, aiul, ad- 
vancing to the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If 
he had fought well, the people saved him, if otherwise, or as they 
happened to be inclined, they turned down their thumbs and he 
was slain." — Flohfiouse. 

1279. From its mass. Tiie Coliseum was for a long time 
used as a stone <piarry. 

1184. developed, opens the decay, etc. When we exam- 
ine it in detail we come to realize the detail. 

1293. Like laurels, etc. " Suetonius informs us that Julius 
CfBsar was ])articularly gratified by that decree of the senate 
which enal)led him to wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. 
He was anxious, not to show that he was the conqueror of the 
world, but to hide that he was bald." — Bi/ron. 

1297. While stands the Coliseum, etc. " This is quoted in 
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as a proof that the 
Coliseum was entire when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pilgrims at 
the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century." — Byron. 
It is ascribed to the Venerable Bede, and the original reads: 
"Quamdiu stabit Coliseus, stabit et Roma ; quando cadet Coli- 
seus, cadet Roma; ipiando cadet Roma, cadet et miindus." 

1306. Here the poet commences his description of the Pantheon. 
The transition is not clear until we reach the last line. 

1321. altars. The Pantheon was consecrated as a church by 
Pope Boniface IV. in 009. 

1323. whose busts around them close. In modern times 
busts of some of the better known Italians have been placed here, 
along with tliose of Raphael, Hannibal, and others. 

Stanza CXLVIII. " This and the three next stanzas allude to 
the story of a Roman daughter, which is recalled to the travel- 
ler by the site or pretended site of that adventure now shown 
at the church of San Nicola in Carcere." — Byron. The legend- 



CHILDE HAROLD 127 

ary young woman had lately become a motber, and wben ad- 
mitted to the prison of her father, who was condemned to death by 
starvation, she nourished him with her milk. The story is found 
in Festus {De Verb. Signif. xx), and also in Pliny and Valerius 
Maxim us. 

1351. The starry fable of the milky way is the story m 
Greek mythology which tells of Hercules being carried as an in- 
fant to Olympus, where he was put to the breast of Hera, who lay 
asleep. When she awoke she pushed him away, and the spilled 
milk formed the Milky Way. 

1360. Mole. This edifice, now called the castle of St. Angelo, 
was built as a mole or mausoleum for the ashes of Hadrian. 

1361. Egypt's piles. The pyramids. 

1362. copyist of deformity, etc. Byron here speaks dis- 
paragingly of Hadrian — he was a mimic, a copyist who built 
shapeless structures resembling those which he had seen in his 

1369. dome. This and the six following stanzas refer to the 
church of St. Peter's. Read the seven stanzas together, and then 
try to decide what it is in this description which most impresses 
you. Byron has here succeeded in communicating, in a highly 
vivid way, the sensations he experienced. How has he accom- 
plished this ? 

1370. The temple of Diana at Ephesus. 

1375. The mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople. 

1393. so defined. Brought into clear outline. 

1396. but increasing, etc. But you are increasing with the 
advance, as you do when you climb a great mountain. 

1402. which vies, etc. It was of this dome that Michael 
Angelo said that his plan would raise the Pantheon in air. 

1431. can. Have power to do. 

1433. Laocoon. See classical dictionary. 

1441. lord of the unerring bow. The statue of Apollo 
Belvedere. 

1450-1453. On this passage E. H. Coleridge has the follow- 
ing note. " It is probable that lines 1-4 of this stanza contain an 
allusion to the fact related by M. Pinel, in his work, Sur Vln- 
sanite, which Milman turned to account in his Belvedere Apollo^ a 
Newdigate Prize Poem of 1812: — 

Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep 

By holy maid on Delphi's haunted steep, 

'Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove, 

Too fair to worship, too divine to love. 

Yet on that form in wild delirious trance 

With more than rev'rence gazed the maid of France, 

Day after day the love-sick dreamer stood 

With him alone, nor thought it solitude ! 

To cherish grief, her last, her dearest care. 

Her one fond hope — to perish of despair. 

1460. fire which we endure. The higher nature which like- 



128 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

wise gives us our capacity for pain. Prometheus, according to 
one myth, created men of clay and through fire endowed them 
with life. 

1461. •whom. The sculptor who carved the statue of Apollo 
Belvedei-f. 

1468. Pilgrim. The reader is to bear in mind that Childe 
Harold, the central figure of the first and second Cantos, and to 
a less extent of the tliird, has not thus far figured in this Canto. 
He is last mentioned in Canto III. stanza 55. Byron is now little 
concerned with the idea of liis own identification with the 
hero. 

1495. Hark ! forth from the abyss, etc. " From the thought 
of death the poet passes to the death of tlie Princess Charlotte, 
which happened when he was at Venice. No other event during 
the ])resent century has caused so great a shock to j)ul)lic feeling 
in England ; and Byron iiiniself, as we learn from his letters, 
was deeply moved by it. She was the only daughter of George 
IV , who at the time was Prince Regent, and consequently she was 
Heiress Presumptive to the British crown. She was virtuous, 
accomj)lislied, large-hearted, and sympathetic, and the liopes of 
the nation were fixed upon her as one who might inaugurate an 
era of prosperity. On May 1(), 181G, she married Prince Leopold 
of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards king of the Belgians), and on Nov. 
6, 1817, she died in childbirth."— Tozer. 

1509. The mother of a moment. The child lived but a mo- 
ment, if indeiMl it were living when born. 

1513. Can it be ? Is it true that tiiou art dead ? 

1516. And Freedom's heart. Freedom, whicli has been 
carrying in her breast many sorrows, will put all these aside and 
will grieve alone for PriiK'ess Charlotte. 

1519. Beheld her Iris. Saw in tiiee the promise of hope. An 
allusion to the bow of j)i'ouiise after the flood. 

1521. husband of a year. Note above the date of her mar- 
riage and o( lier dejith. 

1523. Thy bridal's fruit is ashes. Cf. Canto III. 34. 

Like to appli'8 on the Dead Sea's Shore, 
All ashes to the taste. 

According to the legend the apples ou the brink of the lake 
Asphaltes were filled with ashes. 

1537. tumbles mightiest sovereigns. " Mary died on the 
scalfold; Elizabeth of a broken heart; Charles V., a hermit; 
Louis XIV., a bankrupt in means ami glory; Cromwell, of 
anxiety; and, 'the greatest is behind,' Napoleon lives a prisoner. 
To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added 
of names equally illustrious and unhappy." — Byron. 

1549. Nemi. This lake has as its bed the crater of an extinct 
volcano of one of these Alban Hills which rise out of the Cam- 
pagna of Rome. 



1 



CHILDE HAROLD 129 

1555. Calm as cherished hate. Do you consider this an 

efiPechve ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^j^^ ^^^^^ of Latium the war 

celebrated by Virgil in his Epic (commencing " Of arms and men 

^ 1562^ re-ascf nding star. iEneas, the star of whose fortunes 
arose again after the fall of Troy, helped to found the Empire 

of Rome. , . ^ m ^ 

1564. Tully. Cicero had a retreat at iusculum. 

1566. Sabine farm. Here was Horace's resting-place. 

1574 Calpe's rock. Gibraltar. " Last may be the last time 
that Byron and Childe Harold saw the Mediterranean together. 
Byron had seen it . . . on his return journey to England in 1811. 
Or by last he may mean the last time that it burst upon his view. 
He had not seen the Mediterranean on his way from Geneva to 
Venice in October-November, 1816, o^ from Venice to Rome 
April-May, 1817; but now from the Alban Mount the 'ocean 
was in full View." — E. H. Coleridge. ,, , f 

1576. Symplegades. Two small islands near the entrance ot 

* 1578" both Byron the poet and Childe Harold the pilgrim. 
1586 Does Byron wish for some human personality, such as 
his sister • or is he longing for something supernatural, such as 
the Witch of the Alps in Manfred? In his Epistle to Augusta 

® ^ ■ My sister ! my sweet sister ! if a name 

Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. 

Stanza CLXXVIII. This is one of the stanzas i" %^""'s 
poetry which suggests his indebtedness to Wordsworth. Wlnle 
Byron's attitude toward nature is distmct from Wordsworth s, it 
has, nevertheless, evidently been influenced by such poems as 
Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. 

Stanza CLXXIX. The reader mav interest himself by try- 
ing to decide what has made this one of the best known stanzas 
in Byron's poetry. Is it due to the style; to the happy selection 
o details; to the idea of immensity aroused ; to the truth made 
nmnediat^ly obvious wlien once asserted? Or are there other 

^^TeSo let him lay. Bvron was temperamentally careless, and 
here as elsewhere is indifferent to grammatical law. 

1629 Both the Spanish Armada and a large portion ot the 
fleet captured by the British at Trafalgar were destroyed by 

*^ Stanza CLXXXII. Perhaps nowhere in all literature is the 
permanency and vital freshness of the ocean more effectively 
contrasted with the transitoriness and decay of men and na- 

1632, 1633. waters washed them power, etc. Thy waters 



tions 



130 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

brought them commercial power while they were free, and to 
many a tyrant since thou hast likewise brought such power. 

Stanza CLXXXIII. It is such stanzas as this which justify 
Matthew Arnold's critical stanza about Byron in Memorial Verses: 

Wlien Byron's ejes were shut in death, 
We bowed our heads, and held our breath. 
He taught us little, but our soul 
Had./V// him like the thunder's roll. 
With shivering heart the strife we saw 
Of passion with eternal law ; 
And yet with reverential awe 
We watched the fount of fiery life 
Which served for that Titanic strife. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

Several commentators on The Prisoner of Chillon, Walter Scott 
amongst others, have seen the resemblance between tlie experi- 
ences of Byron's BonAivard and Dante's Ugolino {Inferno, xxxii. 
124 tf). Shelley has said that Byron had deeply studied this 
death of Ugolino, and i)erhaps but for it would never have written 
The Prisoner of Chillon. 

The following outline suggests the structure of the poem. 

Stanza I. describes the effect of tlie long confinement upon the 
prisoner, and explains the family connection and tlie family loyalty 
to tenets they would not forsake. It concentrates attention upon 
the last three surviving brothers. 

Stanza II. describes the appearance of the dungeon and em- 
phasizes the torturing effect of the continuous wearing of prison 
chains. The faint gleam of light which strays into the prison adds 
rather to the gruesomeness of the scene. 

Stanzas III., IV., and V. describe the situation of the three 
brothers and concentrate attention upon the different tempera- 
ments of each. The interest is largely character interest. 

In Stanza VI. the interest is again centered in the prison. The 
effect of loneliness and isolation is rendered vivid by its remote- 
ness from the manifestation of nature outside. 

Stanzas VII. and VIII. narrate the deaths of the two brothers, 
and enlist the sympathy of the reader for the one surviving 
prisoner. 

Stanza IX. records in telling phrase the effect of these terrible 
experiences; it has rendered him unconscious. 

In Stanza X. the prisoner is aroused from his unconsciousness 
by the beautiful carol of a bird, which for a moment he fondly 
imagines to be the soul of his brother. When the bird finally 
flies away he knows it t6 be mortal — his brother's soul could not 
be cruel enough to leave him. 

Stanza XI. records the growing compassion of the keepers, who 
grant him full liberty within his cell. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 131 

In Stanzas XII. and XIII. we note the prisoner's desire to get 
sight of nature. The sight of all this freedom and life outside 
makes him feel more poignantly the darkness of his abode. 

Stanza XIV. records the perfectly passive spirit of the 
prisoner, who, grown used to solitude, despair, and vermin, re- 
gains his "freedom with a sigh." 

2, 3. Do you see any reason why Byron should here employ the 
dimeter lines rather than a single tetrameter ? 

3. In a single night. " Ludovico Sforza and others. — The 
same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the wife of Louis the Six- 
teenth, though not in quite so short a period. Grief is said to 
have the same efPect : to such, and not to fear, this change in hers 
was to be attributed." — Byron. 

10. banned and barred. Distinguish the meaning between 
the two words. 

11. But. Should an adversative be employed here ? Would 
and be better ? 

14. tenets. What is the root meaning ? 

Can you tell from the phrasing whether Byron conceived Bon- 
nivard to have been imprisoned because of his political or his 
religious views ? What line is conclusive ? The historical Bon- 
uivard, it will be recalled, was accused of political crimes. 

27. Gothic mould. Image these pillars, and distinguish be- 
tween tlie Gothic and other forms of architecture. 

31. A sunbeam which hath lost its way. This detail is 
particularly effective. Its mention helps to emphasize the dark- 
ness. 

Of the effect of this sunlight Mr. Neaf in his Guide to the Castle 
of Chillon writes: "This is really so : the loopholes that are 
partly stopped up are now but long crevices or clefts, but Bonni- 
vard, from the spot where he was chained, could, perhaps, never 
get an idea of the loveliness and variety of radiating light which 
the sunbeam shed at different hours of the day. In the morning 
this light is of luminous and transparent shining, which the 
curves of the vaults send back all along the hall. During the 
afternoon the hall assumes a much deeper and warmer colour- 
ing, and the blue transparency of the morning disappears; but at 
eventide, after the sun has set behind the Jura, the scene changes 
to the deep glow of fire." 

35. Like a marsh's meteor lamp. Explain the effective- 
ness of the simile. 

41. this new day. Explain. 

42. painful. Why? 

52. livid light. What image does this phrase suggest ? 

57. pure elements of earth. Such things in nature as sun- 
shine and air. r i • 

63. dreary tone, etc. Follow closely the details of this 
description, and try to conceive the sound the poet has in mind. 



132 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

72. in his degree. What was tlie degree of each brother? 
Name tlieir cluiracteiistics. 

80. Why this parenthesis ? To the prisoner after his libera- 
tion, was the day as beautiful as it liad been ? Why ? 

82. Why does Byron choose a polar day for this comparison ? 
What similar characteristics between the polar day and the 
youngest brother ? 

88. With tears for naught but others' ills. What charac- 
teristic is this ? Try to think of several words that comprehend 
it. 

92. Contrast the two brothers. Image them as distinct per- 
sonalities. 

102. relics. Consult the dictionary for the root meaning. 

105. dungeon was a gulf. K.\phiin tlie metaplior. 

107. Lake Leman. lij roii a few weeks later wrote the fol- 
lowiug sonnet to Lake Leman : — 

Rousseau — Voltaire — our Gibbon — ami De Stael — 

Leuian ! tliese iianies are worthy of tliy shore, 

Thy shores of names like these ! wert thou no more, 

Thy memory tliy remembrance would recall : 

To them thy banks were lovely as to all, 

But they have made tliem lovelier, for the lore 

Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core 

Of human hearts the ruin of a wall 

Where dwelt the wise and wondrous ; but by thee. 

How much more, Lake of Beauty, do we feel, 

In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, 

The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, 

Which of the heirs of immortality 

Is proud, and makes the death of glory real ! 

108. thousand feet. The lake is very deep ; it has been 
sounded to the depth of <S0() feet. 

121. wanton. Ileedkss. 

122. the very rock hath rocked. E. II. Coleridge calls this 
play on words "feeble and irritating." Do you agree? Can you 
find other instances in the poem? in Shakespeare ? Cf. Macbeth, 
passim. 

154. foolish thought. Why does Bonnivard consider it 
foolish ? 

160. In what case is earth ? 

166 fair face. Note the effect produced by the series of nouns 
with one aceom})anying adjective : i7ifant love; martyred father^ 
dearest thought; latest care. 

185. such. Anything like violent emotion. In the following 
lines point out the words and plirases which suggest the quiet 
gradual decline. 

189. those. " There is much delicacy in this plural. By such 
a fanciful multiplying of the survivors the elder brother prevents 
self-intrusion ; himself and his loneliness are, as it were, kept 
out of sight and forgotten." — Hales. 

210. Note here the contrast in the elder brother's emotion ; 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 133 

the spirit of dread quiet is violently disturbed. Is this effec- 
tive ? 

210 ff. What details does the narrator here employ to bring 
out the idea of his own loneliness ? 

227, 228. Comment on the dimeter lines. 

229, 230. I had no earthly hope, but I had spiritual faith, and 
thinking' of my faith I could not commit suicide. 

Stanza IX. In this stanza study the words and phrases which 
portray the unconsciousness of the prisoner. Each word — each 
pair of words, in some places — is full of concentrated thought 
and emotion. 

238. As shrubless crags -within the mist. Make a study 
of this simile. Is it effective ? Why, or why not ? Comment 
upon the epithet shrubless ? Does it add to the effectiveness of 
the figure ? 

Stanza X. Do you consider the use of the bird particularly 
effective ? Explain fully just what it did, and what emotions it 
aroused. 

255-258. This is a very delicate way of expressing the idea 
that for a moment he forgot his sad environment. 

282. Try to explain why the change to apostrophe is here 
effective. Remember that in poetry emotion must be aroused. 

284. Does this seem natural or far-fetched? 

293, 294. Study these figures and try to decide which is the 
more effective. Does the second remind you of anything from 
Wordsworth ? 

316, 317. These two lines well illustrate the emotional power 
of poetry. A sympathetic reading recreates in the reader the 
feeling which prompted the expression. 

327. had. What form should we employ in ordinary prose ? 

331. With this line compare Wordsworth's line in A Poet's 

Epitaph : — 

The harvest of a quiet eye. 

Byron had satirized Wordsworth severely in English Bards 
and Scotch Reviewers. He later regretted his stricture, and by 
such lines as these acknowledged a poetic debt. 

341. " Between the entrance of the Rhone and Villeneuve, 
not far from Chillon, is a very small island (He de Paix); the 
only one I could perceive in my voyage round and over the lake, 
within its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not 
over three), and from its singleness and diminutive size has a 
peculiar effect upon the view." — E. H. Coleridge. 

356. Explain the emotion of this line. 

Stanza XIII. repays careful study. Note the selected details 
that lend vivid reality to the outside world upon which the 
prisoner's new gaze is briefly centered. The effect of it all is 
heightened by the contrast of the darkened prison gloom in 
which he is soon shrouded. 



134 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 
378. Cf. Lovelace's To Altheain Prison : — 

Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and (luiet take 

That for a hermitage. 

391. even. Explain. Where in prose would be the natural 
place of this word in the line ? 

MAZEPPA. 

This poem, written in 1818, was ])ul)Iishcd the following year. 
The first hundred and twenty-four lines give the setting of the 
story. Charles XII. of Sweden, accoinj)anied by Mazeppa, a 
Cossack chieftain and ally, has, in his wounded condition, sought 
refuge in Turkish territory after the disastrous defeat at Pul- 
towa. Here resting the King is glad to listen to IMazeppa's story. 

1. Pultovv^a's day. The liattle of Pultowa on the Vorskla was 
fought between the Russians and tlie Swedes in July, 1709. The 
victorious Russians outnumbered the Swedes four to one. 

9. a day more dark and drear, etc. This alludes to the Na^ 
poleon campaign of ISTJ. 

16. wounded Charles. Several days before the Battle of 
Pultowa King Charles XII. of Sweden had been wounded. He 
nevertheless connnanded that he be placed on a litter and car- 
ried with his troops. In the battle this litter was battered to 
pieces, another crude one was hurriedly improvised, and the 
King carried into Turkish territory. 

53. Mazeppa. The Tkraine (the country of the Cossacks) 
has aspired to liberty; but being surrounded by Muscovy, the 
dominions of the Grand Seignior, and Poland, it has been obliged 
to choose a protector, and, consequently, a master, in one of these 
three States. The Ukrainians at first put themselves under the 
protection of the Poles, who treated them with great severity. 
They afterwards submitted to the Russians, who governed them 
with despotic sway. They had originally the privilege of electing 
a prince under the name of general ; but they were soon deprived 
of that right, and their general was nominated by the court of 
Moscow. 

The person who then filled that station was a Polish gentle- 
man, named Mazep])a, and born in the palatinate of Podolia. 
He had been brought up as a page to John Casimir, and had re- 
ceived some tincture of learning in his court. An intrigue which 
he had had in his youth with the lady of a Polish gentleman, having 
been discovered, the husband caused him to be bound stark naked 
upon a wild horse, and let him go in that condition. The horse, 
which had been brought out of Ukraine, returned to its own 
country, and carried Mazeppa along with it, half-dead with hunger 
and fatigue. Some of the country people gave him assistance ; 



MAZEPPA 135 

and he lived among them for a long time, and signalized himself 
in several excursions against the Tartars. The superiority of his 
knowledge gained him great respect among the Cossacks; and his 
reputation daily increasing, the Czar found it necessary to make 
him prince of the Ukraine. 

58-97. Study this portion of the poem in order to determine 
how the described actions of Mazeppa create the reader's concep- 
tions of the old Hetman character. Enumerate the chief traits. 

104. Bucephalus. This famous horse of Alexander the Great 
accompanied his master through various campaigns, and would 
allow no one but the king to ride him. The horse at his death was 
buried with great pomp. 

116. Borysthenes. The Dneiper. 

128. See note to line 53. 

157. The wealth of this country still consists largely of salt 
mines. 

263. What preceding line in the poem likewise suggests the 
character of the night on which the story is told ? Do you con- 
sider such references as these effective — references which re- 
mind the reader of the scene in which the story is told ? Or are 
we so interested in the story of Mazeppa's earlier experience that 
such details affect us as an intrusion ? Point out other instances 
in the poem. 

308. sword. Syntax? 

347. AVhat preceding line harmonizes especially with this ? 

354. 'Sdeath. An oath corrupted from God's death. 

392. Note liovv the chronological sequence is here interrupted. 
The narrator jumping to a far-succeeding event connects it with 
his present narrative. Do you consider this effective ? Justify 
your opinion. 

404. hot lead. The roofs of old castles were often made prin- 
cipally of lead. 

437. Spahi. Turkish cavalryman. 

460-464. Here and elsewhere Byron's description is intense 
in its emphasis on the gory. Is it so intense as to be revolting? 
Or is it simply in harmony with the general savagery of the 
time ? Does it harmonize with the character of the narrator ? 
Point out other instances of this intense realism. 

538. The thread on which the successive tropes or images are 
loosely strung seems to give if not to snap at this point. "Con- 
sidering that Mazeppa was sprung of a race which in moments 
of excitement, when an enemy has stamped upon its vitals, 
springs up to repel the attack, it was only to be expected that he 
should sink beneath the blow — and sink he did." The conclu- 
sion is at variance with the premise. — E. H. Coleridge. 

597. How many hours, etc. Compare 

Hciw long in that same fit I lay, 
I have not to declare. 

— Ancient Mariner. 



136 NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS 

600-604. Study these lines for concentrated descriptive effect. 
A i>u).st vivid picture is portrayed in few words. 

664. ■werst. This word, often written verst, is a unit of mea- 
sure — about two-thirds of a mile. What is the syntax? 

744-746. An entry in Byron's journal of Feb. 18, 1814, reads 
as follows: "Is there anything beyond? Who knows? He tiiat 
can't tell. Who tells that there is? He who don't know. And 
when shall he know ? Perhaps when he don't ex])ect, and gen- 
erally when he don't wish it. In this last respect, however, all 
are not alike: it depends a good deal upon education, something 
upon nerves and habits, but most on digestion." 

816. vulture. Would raven be more effective ? Cf. line 770. 



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